


Number Six

by paperstorm



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2009178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of the five times Jared and Jensen said goodbye, and the one time they didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[ ](http://s780.photobucket.com/user/storm_warning86/media/GIFs/1.jpg.html)

 

“JT! Keep up!” Jared’s mom calls.  
  
Jared looks up. He wanted to look at a bee on a little yellow flower, because it made a buzzy sound and it’s all yellow and black stripey, but now his family is too far away. “Wait!”  
  
“C’mon, Runt!” Jeff yells. “If you don’t catch up, you’ll hafta live in the woods!”  
  
Jared doesn’t want to live in the woods. There are mosquitoes and it would be cold at night. “ _Wait_!” he calls, forgetting about the bee and running as fast as his legs will carry him.  
  
“He’s joking,” Jared’s dad says as Jared catches up to them. His chest hurts now from running so fast.  
  
“Are you sure?” he asks. He really likes his room and his toys. He doesn’t want to live here. He’d get wet when it rained.  
  
“Of course.” His mom picks him up and spins him around. “We would never leave you anywhere.”  
  
“What if you forgot?” Jared worries.  
  
“No one could forget your ugly face!” Jeff cries, and then laughs so hard he falls down on the grass.  
  
“What was that?” Mom asks Jeff, with that voice that says _hoo boy, you’re gonna get it_. Jared is scared of that voice. Jeff is too, even though he says he’s not scared of anything. Megan isn’t scared of it yet, but she’s only a baby. She will be.  
  
“Nothing,” Jeff says quickly and stops laughing.  
  
“That’s what I thought.” She looks back at Jared and kisses his forehead. “You are impossible to forget, little one.”  
  
Jared smiles inside and hugs his mom tight. She squeezes her arms around him.  
  
“Can I go to the playground now?” Jeff asks, getting up off the ground bouncing up and down on his feet.  
  
“Take your brother with you,” Mom says, putting Jared down.  
  
“Aw, Mom,” Jeff complains, but then he gets a _look_ and he shuts up pretty quick. He takes Jared’s hand and starts tugging him toward the play structure. “Come on.”  
  
It’s a park Jared’s been to lots of times and he likes it here. There are swings and a big slide and lots of sand-pits. Jared likes the sand-pits the best. He likes making things. Only they didn’t bring any buckets or shovels with them this time, so then it’s not as much fun. As soon as they reach the structure, Jeff takes off for the monkey bars. Jared can’t do monkey bars yet, he’s too little.  
  
“Jeff!” he yells. “You’re s’posed to stay with me!”  
  
Jeff doesn’t listen. Jared flops down in the sand and feels sad. He can do the monkey bars if Jeff helps him, but Jeff only helps him when Dad tells him to and Dad’s back at the picnic table with Mom and Megan. Jeff is bigger and he always wants to go do big-kid things and leave Jared behind so he has no one to play with.  
  
“What’s wrong with you?” a voice asks.  
  
Jared looks up. There’s a boy on the other side of the pit. He’s older than Jared, maybe about Jeff’s age. He has green eyes and his hair is the color of the sand and there are dots on his nose. And he has sand toys. A big yellow bucket and _two_ shovels, a blue one and a green one. Lucky.  
  
“My brother left.”  
  
“Where did he go?”  
  
Jared points. “To the monkey bars with the bigger kids. I can’t do them. Too small.”  
  
“Oh.” The boy looks back at him and shrugs. “I don’t like the monkey bars.”  
  
“I don’t either,” Jared decides quickly.  
  
“You wanna play?” the boy asks.  
  
Jared is surprised. Big kids never want to play with little kids. He knows he never wants to play with Megan. She’s boring. All she does is eat and poop and make a lot of noise for no reason. “You wanna play with me?”  
  
“I have two shovels ‘cause my brother left too. Do you like blue or green?”  
  
Jared smiles. He doesn’t feel sad anymore. “Green.”  
  
“I like blue better anyway,” the boy says, tossing the green shovel to Jared. He starts digging into the sand and pouring shovelfuls of it into the bucket. Then he packs it down with the flat part of the shovel. Jared crawls closer and helps him.  
  
“What’s your name?” he asks.  
  
“Jensen,” the boy says.  
  
“What kind of a name is that?”  
  
Jensen shrugs again. “The one my mom gave me, I guess. It’s better than, like, Butt or something.”  
  
Jared bursts into giggles. “Someone named their kid Butt?”  
  
Jensen laughs too. “I don’t know. Maybe. What’s your name?”  
  
“Jared. Sometimes my mom calls me JT, ‘cause my middle name is Tristan. So it’s a J for Jared, and then a T for Tristan. And my brother calls me Runt, but I don’t like that.”  
  
“What should I call you?”  
  
“Not Runt.”  
  
“Okay. I like Jared, then. JT sounds like a robot or something. Like R2-D2.”  
  
“What’s R2-D2?” Jared asks. He piles more sand into the bucket. It’s almost full.  
  
“You’ve never seen Star Wars?” Jensen says, like he can’t believe it.  
  
Jared shakes his head.  
  
“Oh man, it’s so cool! There’s like all these weird aliens, and it’s all in space so there’s these cool rocket ships that everybody flies around in, and there’s this scary guy, Darth Vader, and he’s all big and you can’t see his face and he talks creepy and breathes a lot, and then there’s Luke and Leia and Han Solo and Chewy and they’re always fighting him, and Darth Vader cuts Luke’s hand off even though he’s his dad, and then in the end they win and all the bad guys die and it’s _awesome_!” He finishes with a big smile and then a huge gulp of air like he forgot to breathe when he was doing all that talking. That happens to Jared sometimes when he gets excited.  
  
“I love rocket ships! Maybe my mom and dad will let me watch it when we get home.”  
  
Jensen fills the bucket to the top, and then flips it over. He pats the top and the sides and then carefully lifts it back up, so there’s just a cone of sand left. “If you draw windows and a door and stuff on it, it looks like a house. Like where the Sand People from Star Wars would live. If they were really small.”  
  
“You wanna make a big castle?” Jared asks. “I know how. My dad showed me.”  
  
Jensen nods and they start filling the bucket up again. “I wish you could come to my house and watch Star Wars. But you can’t ‘cause we don’t live here.”  
  
“Where do you live?”  
  
“In Richardson. We’re just here to visit my cousins.”  
  
“Is Richardson far away?”  
  
“Not too far. We came in a car. So it’s not like China or something, where you’d hafta be on an airplane. But it took a long time.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Hey, Jensen! What’re you playing with a baby for?” a big kid, even bigger than Jeff, yells as he runs by them with a bunch of other kids.  
  
“Because he’s nice, unlike you!” Jensen yells back.  
  
“I’m not a baby,” Jared says. Jeff calls him that sometimes. It hurts his feelings.  
  
“I know. Babies can’t make awesome sand castles. Unless they were like a superhero’s baby or something.”  
  
Jared smiles a little and feels better. “Who was that boy?”  
  
“My stupid brother. He used to get in trouble when he was mean to me. But now my parents are always looking at the baby so they never see it anymore. I mean, sometimes he’s nice. But sometimes he’s not.”  
  
“Your parents have a baby? So do mine.”  
  
“How old?”  
  
“I don’t know. She’s real small though. And loud.”  
  
Jensen laughs. “So’s mine. But sometimes she makes funny faces. And it’s fun to make her smile.”  
  
“Mine doesn’t smile yet. Too small, I guess.”  
  
Jensen suddenly waves at someone behind Jared. Jared turns around to look, and sees a man and woman sitting on a bench a little ways away. There’s a baby in the woman’s arms.  
  
“Is that your family?” Jared asks Jensen, and Jensen nods. Jared waves at them too, and they wave back even though they don’t know him. They must be nice people.  
  
“Let’s make the biggest castle ever,” Jensen says, with a smile that makes his eyes squinty. “So big we could fit inside.”  
  
“Do you think we can?” Jared asks. He’s excited, that sounds like fun.  
  
“Totally! But it’s gonna take a long time so grab your shovel!”  
  
“Okay!” Jared starts digging, filling up the bucket again, but then Jensen’s dad walks over and crouches down next to them.  
  
“Hey buddy. Who’s your friend?”  
  
“His name is Jared,” Jensen says. “ _Not_ Runt.”  
  
Jensen’s dad laughs a little. “Okay. Well it’s nice to meet you, Jared-not-Runt.”  
  
“Hi,” Jared says shyly. Then he giggles at Jensen’s dad’s joke.  
  
“Looks like you guys are having fun. But we gotta go now, bud.” He rubs Jensen’s hair like Jared’s dad does to him sometimes.  
  
“Five more minutes?” Jensen begs. “We wanna make a big castle!”  
  
Jensen’s dad shakes his head. “I’m sorry. We’ll be late if we don’t leave now.”  
  
Jensen pouts, but he empties the bucket and puts the two shovels back into it. “Okay.”  
  
“Say goodbye to your friend.”  
  
“Bye.”  
  
“Thanks for playing with me,” Jared says. He really, really wishes Jensen didn’t have to leave.  
  
“You’re cool,” Jensen says with another shrug, and Jared gets all warm inside because a big kid has never called him cool before. He walks away, waving to Jared over his shoulder, and Jared calls, “Bye!”


	2. Chapter 2

[ ](http://s780.photobucket.com/user/storm_warning86/media/GIFs/2.jpg.html)

 

“What are you going to ride first?” Jared’s dad asks, turning the van’s radio down so he can hear their answers.  
  
“The one that goes spinny around in circles so fast it feels like you’re gonna die!” Jeff cries. “Remember that one Jared? It’s so cool!”  
  
“Is that the one that made me puke?” Jared asks, wrinkling his nose.  
  
“That was the Ferris Wheel,” Mom replies. “We won’t do that again.”  
  
“Jared’s scared of heights,” Jeff taunts. Then when Mom gives him the _look_ through that little mirror attached to the front window, he reluctantly adds, “but everyone’s scared of something.”  
  
Even though Mom made Jeff say it, Jared knows Jeff is scared of snakes and that makes him feel better. Jeff cried when they went camping a few weeks ago because a snake slithered into their campsite and touched his foot. If Jeff gets too mean, Jared will just tell all Jeff’s friends about it and then he for dang sure will think twice about being mean again.  
  
“Does the spinny one really make you die?” Megan’s small voice worries from her car seat in the back row.  
  
“No, honey,” Mom promises, turning around in her seat to blow kisses at Megan. “No one is going to die.”  
  
“You’re not big enough for that one anyway,” Jeff tells her. “You have to go on the baby rides. Like that one with the floating ducks.”  
  
Jared turns around and smiles at his sister. “I like the ducks. I’ll go on that one with you, Meg.”  
  
Her face lights up and Jared feels warm and happy inside because of it.  
  
“I guess I’ll go too,” Jeff sighs. He’s pretending to be annoyed but really he just doesn’t like being left out, even of things he thinks he’s too cool for. Besides, Jared knows there are lots of rides even _Jeff_ isn’t big enough for, so he shouldn’t make fun of Megan. It’s not her fault she’s so small.  
  
The fair is noisy and busy and it smells exactly like Jared remembers from last year. Jeff says they went the year before that too, but Jared can’t remember that far back. The spinny ride kinda _does_ make Jared feel like he’s going to die, but it’s really fun. He and Jeff and Dad ride that one ten times in a row while Mom and Megan are at the petting zoo. After the last time, Jared never wants to spin again. His feet forget how to walk and Dad has to carry him. Jeff doesn’t even tease him because his face is just as green as Jared’s is. They feel better after a while, and then Jared keeps his promise and rides the ducks with Megan. Jeff won’t fit in the little cars anymore, so he watches from behind the fence with Mom and Dad and makes funny faces at them every time they go around. Jared shows Megan how to pull the stick and make the duck quack, and the first time it scares her because it’s loud but the second time she laughs.  
  
Later they eat hotdogs and go into the haunted house and on the smaller roller coaster. One day they’ll be big enough to ride the one that makes you go upside down, Jeff says, but not yet. Jared’s not sure he wants to go upside down, but he’ll do it if Jeff goes with him. When Jeff is trying to toss a ring onto a glass bottle to win a stuffed penguin, Jared thinks he sees a girl from his class at school named Sarah and he runs over to talk to her. Most girls are stupid, but Sarah is nice. She shared her cupcake with Jared one time. But it isn’t Sarah, it’s just a girl that looks a little bit like her, and then when Jared turns back around his family is gone. Jared blinks and looks around. He doesn’t recognize anyone. His heart starts beating way too fast.  
  
“Mom?” he says quietly. No one answers and Jared feels dizzy.  
  
He walks a little bit. Maybe they’re still at the bottle game and Jared can find them. But he can’t find the bottle game either. There’s a shooting game and a Whack-a-mole game but no bottles, and no Mom or Dad or Jeff or Megan. Maybe they left. Maybe they’re in the car and on their way home and they don’t even realize that Jared isn’t with them. Maybe they won’t ever realize and Jared will have to go live in a horrible orphanage like in Annie and he’ll never, ever, ever see them again. He feels even dizzier and hot and scared and he starts to cry, even though he knows eight is too old to cry.  
  
“Mommy,” Jared says again, tears pouring down his face and dripping off his chin and onto his t-shirt. He knows he’s supposed to find someone in a uniform if he ever gets lost, but he doesn’t see any uniforms. Just parents with their not-lost-kids hurrying past him way too fast to notice.  
  
Jared’s whole body shakes and he falls down on the dirty ground, pulling his knees up into his chest and pushing his face into them and sobbing. They’re gone forever, he just knows it. “Come back, Mom,” he cries, even though he knows she can’t hear him.  
  
“Hey, are you okay?” a voice asks.  
  
Jared looks up. There are two boys standing over him. One is about Jeff’s age, with green eyes and freckles, and the other one is even older than Jeff. Maybe a teenager like Jared’s cousin. Jared doesn’t answer the question one of them asked. He’s not supposed to talk to strangers.  
  
The smaller one kneels down and looks into Jared’s eyes with his forehead all wrinkled up. “Are you hurt?”  
  
“Jensen,” the older one sighs, with that annoyed voice like Jeff uses.  
  
The younger one, Jensen, looks over his shoulder and says, “He’s alone and he’s crying, we can’t just leave him here.”  
  
“My family is gone,” Jared finally manages to whisper.  
  
Jensen turns back to him. “You’re lost?”  
  
Jared nods and sniffs. “What if they never find me?”  
  
“You know what?” Jensen says, shuffling closer and putting a hand on Jared’s arm. “I bet they’re running around all over the place right now looking for you. I bet they’re so scared because they don’t know where you are. So let’s go find them, okay? So they won’t be scared anymore.”  
  
Jared sniffs again and wipes his nose with his sleeve. He likes Jensen and he doesn’t want his parents to be scared. “Okay.”  
  
Jensen helps him up, and then the older one asks, “What’s your name?”  
  
“Jared,” he answers shyly.  
  
“I’m Josh. This is my brother Jensen. We’ll help you find them, sound good?”  
  
Jared nods.  
  
“Should we get Dad?” Jensen asks his brother.  
  
Josh thinks about it for a moment, and then asks Jared, “Where did you see them the last time? Before you got separated?”  
  
“What’s separated?” Jared’s never heard that word before.  
  
“It means before you weren’t with them anymore,” Jensen says. He smiles at Jared and doesn’t make fun of him for not knowing something.  
  
“Oh. Um, we were playing this game.”  
  
“Which one? Skeeball?”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “The one with the bottles. There’s all these bottles and you throw this little red ring at them, and if it hooks around the bottle top then you win.”  
  
“I think I know where that is,” Josh says. He pats Jared on the shoulder. “Come on, kid.”  
  
“Thanks for helping me,” Jared says quietly to Jensen as they follow Josh into the crowd.  
  
“I got a little sister, I would want someone to help her if she was lost.” Jensen grins and shrugs. “And besides, I bet you’d help me.”  
  
“I would,” Jared promises.  
  
They walk for a few minutes but they don’t make it all the way to the bottles before a familiar voice yells, “Jared!”  
  
Jared looks up and sees his mom running toward them. “Mom!”  
  
“Oh my God,” she cries as she grabs Jared and hugs him so tight it hurts. Jared hugs back. “Don’t you ever do that to me again! Do you hear me?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared says, feeling stupid for wandering away. She pulls back and looks at him, and her make-up is all messy like she was crying.  
  
“Oh baby, I know.” She kisses his forehead and wipes away the last of his tears. “You just scared us. Are you okay?”  
  
Jared nods and points at the two boys. “They helped me find you.”  
  
Mom gets up and pulls them into a tight hug too, Jensen first and then Josh. “Oh thank you, thank you so much.”  
  
“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Josh says, his face turning red when she hugs him.  
  
“Are Dad and Jeff and Megan lost too?” Jared asks, suddenly realizing they aren’t with Mom and getting scared all over again for just a second before Mom shakes her head.  
  
“No, they’re … let’s go get them, alright? They want to give you lots of hugs too.” She holds out her hand and Jared takes it.  
  
“Hey Jared,” someone calls as they start to walk away.  
  
Jared turns back and Jensen is waving at him. “Don’t get lost again, okay?”  
  
“I won’t!” Jared calls back, part of him wishing Jensen could come with them. He was nice. “Bye!”


	3. Chapter 3

[ ](http://s780.photobucket.com/user/storm_warning86/media/GIFs/3.jpg.html)

 

Jared has never been to Houston before. Not that it’s supposed to be particularly amazing or anything, but he’s never really been _anywhere_ without his parents before, other than dumb school fieldtrips to the museum or whatever, so that’s the fun part. He was supposed to go camping last year in Boerne with his friend Matt’s family, but then he caught strep throat the day before and had to miss it. Which totally sucked. Jared likes his parents, mostly, but it’s going to be so cool to be away from them for three whole days while his basketball team plays in the tournament. The coaches will be around, and there are some parent chaperones – Jared’s mom wanted to come but he _begged_ her not to and eventually she agreed – but still, none of those people are _Jared’s_ parents. And he gets to stay in a hotel room with Matt, Chris, and Brian and there won’t be _any_ grown-ups there. It is going to be _awesome_. The bus ride there takes way too long and Jared is practically bouncing in his seat the whole time.  
  
The hotel is completely sweet. It has a _huge_ pool and a room full of arcade games and this enormous buffet that has pretty much every kind of food Jared has ever heard of, plus a few he hasn’t and he wants to try them all because it would be _so_ cool to go back home and know about something that Jeff doesn’t. The first day, they don’t get there until the afternoon so the coach gives them an hour to get settled in their rooms and then they go on a bus tour of downtown. It’s kind of boring, just buildings and stuff – there are a couple statues in this garden thing that Jared thinks are neat, but his friends roll their eyes at them so Jared keeps that to himself – but Jared gets to sit on the top of a double-decker bus and that’s cool. He’s never been on one before. It’s kind of like a ride, speeding through the busy city streets so much higher up than all the cars. And Amanda Murray gets pooped on by a pigeon while they’re stopped at a red light, and that’s even better. She completely freaks out, screaming and flapping her arms like she’s pretending to be the bird that just crapped on her head, and Jared and his friends laugh so hard he can’t breathe. It earns them a dirty look from the coach, but whatever. Getting in trouble never stopped something from being funny before.  
  
The second day they go to this crazy awesome sports complex for the tournament. Jared isn’t _that_ great a player; he mostly just tried out so his mom would stop nagging him about only ever playing video games in his spare time. He’s decent enough, though, and tall for his age so he made the team. He really likes basketball even if he’ll never be a star. His team is pretty good, anyway, so that makes it fun. It’s always more fun to win, even if Jared doesn’t see as much time on the court as Chris and Matt do. That day is just the round-robin, but Jared’s team comes out close to the top on the points list and they’re all so stoked about it that later they horse around and shout in the pool so much it gets them yelled at by the hotel manager.  
  
The third day teams start getting knocked off if they lose, so it’s really important they do well. Jared is nervous and excited and having the time of his life. Then, halfway through their first game of the day, a kid way bigger than Jared crashes into him and Jared goes flying. He’s disoriented until he hits the ground, landing awkwardly on one leg before crashing all the way down, and then everything just _hurts_. His head smacks against the gym floor so hard he sees stars, and his ankle absolutely _kills_. His coach and a few teammates rush over, asking him questions that sound fuzzy and like a different language, like the grown-ups from Peanuts cartoons. Somebody bumps his ankle lightly and Jared cries out as sharp daggers shoot up his leg. Nothing in his life has ever hurt this bad.  
  
“Stop it!” somebody shouts, shoving through the crowd of blurry people hovering over Jared.  
  
“Hey, kid,” a voice that sounds like Jared’s coach starts angrily.  
  
“ _Move_ ,” the first voice insists.  
  
“What are you, Doogie Howser?” the coach asks.  
  
“No. I’m just not a moron. Out here pokin’ at him like he’s roadkill or something, Jesus.”  
  
The crowd all moves back enough so Jared can’t see them anymore, and then there’s a face right above his and Jared manages to focus on bright green eyes.  
  
“What’s your name?” the voice attached to the eyes asks.  
  
“Jared,” he manages to croak weakly. He’s not going to cry. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not. Teenagers don’t cry.  
  
“How many fingers?”  
  
Jared blinks a few times and then can make out the only slightly fuzzy outline of a hand. “Two.”  
  
“Okay.” The hand holds up just one finger now, and the voice says, “Can you follow my fingertip? With just your eyes?”  
  
Jared does, watching it as it moves back and forth, his head not hurting quite so much anymore. When he stops following the finger, he can make out the person’s whole face now. It isn’t a parent, it’s another teenager – although a few years older than Jared. The freckles on his nose look familiar.  
  
“Good news,” the boy says, smiling at him. “I think you’re gonna live. What else hurts?”  
  
“Ankle,” Jared tells him. Soft fingertips brush over the skin on his leg, down to where his ankle has its own, painful heartbeat.  
  
“It’s gonna hurt, but I need you to try to move your foot.”  
  
Jared nods. It does hurt, so much it makes his eyes water a little, but he can tilt his foot up and down a few times.  
  
“I don’t think it’s broken,” the boy says. Then his voice sounds farther away, like he isn’t talking to Jared anymore. “There’s a nurse in an office down the hall. Out that door and to the left. Go get him checked out to be sure. And help him, don’t let him put weight on that foot.”  
  
A few of his teammates help Jared up and act like human crutches to get him to the nurse. She does more or less the same tests that older boy did, and everything hurts less and less by the minute. She asks him a couple easy math questions to make sure his brain isn’t busted. She wraps his ankle up gently in a stretchy bandage and gives him a bag of ice for it, telling him not to walk too much for the next few days until it starts to feel better. He’s in her office for maybe twenty minutes, and by the time he leaves he can walk by himself, even if it smarts a little and he has to limp.  
  
Mostly, Jared’s just thankful he managed not to cry. That would’ve been completely embarrassing and _way_ worse than the pain of getting knocked down. Nobody on his team would have ever let him live that one down.  
  
He hobbles back to the gym and gives his coach a thumbs-up from across the floor to say he’s okay. He can’t play though, and that sucks really bad because it’s only the first game of the day and now Jared has to sit on the sidelines for the rest of it. He likes playing basketball well enough, but watching it is sort of like watching two snails racing across a room.  
  
Because he’s curious, he looks around for the boy who helped him, but then as he takes in the crowd in the stands Jared realizes he didn’t see much other than the guy’s eyes and one hand so it’s not likely he’ll recognize him. Jared’s just about to find a seat to wait in before there’s a break in play so he can cross the floor to sit with his team, when he spots an older teenager sitting with two other grown-ups at a long table on the edge of the floor. He catches Jared’s eye and gives him an awkward little wave. It’s the guy with the green eyes, Jared’s sure of it, even though he’s kinda far away.  
  
There’s an empty chair next to him, and when the whistle sounds, the guy nods at the chair and waves Jared over. Jared hesitates, half of him wanting to go sit with his team. But then he thinks maybe he’d just be in their way, so he limps over to his helper.  
  
“How’re you feeling?” the guy asks, with a genuinely sympathetic smile. His hair is tipped in blond like someone in a boy band and the rest of him kinda looks like that too – white, straight teeth and big eyes and a smile that makes his eyes crinkled at the edges. He looks like someone out of a magazine, someone all the girls in Jared’s class would squeal about.  
  
“Better,” Jared says. “Can’t play, though.”  
  
“Shitty. Or, I guess I shouldn’t swear in front of you.”  
  
“It’s only teachers and parents that give a shit,” Jared says. He feels reckless and dangerous using that word so casually. Even Jeff gets in trouble for that one.  
  
“Are you gonna sit with them?” the guys asks, nodding toward Jared’s team across the floor. When Jared shrugs instead of answering, he adds, “You can hang out here, if you want.”  
  
“Who are you?” Jared blurts out. He glances toward the two grown-ups at the other end of the table, but they’re busy poring over charts and lists and pay him no attention.  
  
“Jensen. I’m the time-keeper.”  
  
“Oh.” Jared thinks about that for a moment. It never occurred to him that someone had to start and stop the clock, but he supposes that makes sense. He sits down. “Okay. Thanks.”  
  
“Your team’s from San Antonio, right?” Jensen asks.  
  
“Yeah. How do you know?”  
  
Jensen holds up a piece of paper with names and jersey numbers on it. “Got the roster. So are you Jared Padalecki or Jared McNamara?”  
  
“Padalecki.”  
  
Jensen nods. “Cool name.”  
  
Jared doesn’t know what to say, because he kind of can’t believe this guy is even talking to him. Jeff has friends over to the house all the time and they never say more than two words to Jared. Way too cool to be caught talking to someone younger than them. Even Jeff has been distant lately. They’ll be in the same school next year and Jared wouldn’t be surprised if Jeff has spent this whole year swearing up and down that he doesn’t have a younger brother. Jared isn’t too hurt by it, because he’ll probably do the same with Meg. His mom says that’s just _how it goes_ , and Jared believes her. But here’s this guy – this super cool older kid – and he’s sitting here chatting with Jared like it isn’t weird at all. The name _Jensen_ is familiar, too, but Jared can’t place it.  
  
“Why do you wanna talk to me?” Jared asks bluntly, and then blushes when Jensen frowns at him.  
  
Jensen must sense Jared’s embarrassment because he grins and turns it into a joke. “Why not? Are you a serial killer or something?”  
  
“No.” Jared laughs. “I just … how old are you?”  
  
“Seventeen.”  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause see, I have a brother that’s sixteen and he never wants to talk to me.”  
  
Jensen doesn’t answer right away, because the referee comes over and talks to him in a low voice for a moment. Jensen nods and says, “Okay,” a few times, and then he scribbles some stuff down on his notepad. “Sorry,” he mumbles to Jared. “Just gimme a minute.”  
  
Jared looks over at the bench where his teammates are sitting, and Brian is looking back at him. He points to Jensen and turns his palms to the ceiling in question. Jared shakes his head to indicate he doesn’t know what Brian’s asking, and then the coach puts him back in the game so Jared never finds out.  
  
“Uh, what were we – oh, right.” Jensen leans back in his chair and crosses his arms casually. “Well, I got an older brother too. So I know how that goes.”  
  
It doesn’t really answer Jared’s question, but he finds himself okay with that. “Do you like basketball a lot?”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “I don’t know. Not really.”  
  
“So how come you’re doin’ this?” Jared gestures to the table in front of them and the black device that stops the clock.  
  
“Community service,” Jensen answers with a grimace.  
  
Jared’s eyes widen. “Were you in jail?”  
  
Jensen laughs quietly. “Not that kind of community service. My high school makes us do like forty hours of volunteering before we’re allowed to graduate. Ten hours for every grade, ninth to twelfth. So I do this for our basketball teams back home, and then they asked me if I wanted to do this tournament. Two full days added to the hours I already have, it basically knocks off my time requirement for all four years. Which is good, ‘cause I put it off until now.”  
  
Jared nods. He isn’t sure what to say to all that. Mostly because he still can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that Jensen wants to talk to him.  
  
“Does it hurt?” Jensen asks, and when Jared looks at him he’s pointing to Jared’s ankle, which Jared just now realizes has swollen up to nearly twice its size.  
  
“Whoa. No, it – I mean, a little. Not too bad,” Jared says, wanting to seem cool; and it really doesn’t hurt that much anymore. “It looks crazy, though.”  
  
“Lift it up,” Jensen tells him.  
  
Jared does, bending his leg and resting his injured ankle on the thigh of his other leg. Jensen picks up the bag of ice cubes Jared had dropped onto the table and forgotten about, and he gingerly places it over Jared’s swollen flesh and arranges it so it’ll stay without someone holding it. His touch is gentle and his fingertips accidentally brush against Jared’s skin, and Jared forgets how to breathe for a second. His stomach does a little flip-flop and his cheeks burn, and his palms go clammy.  
  
“That okay?” Jensen asks, like he really cares, and Jared just gulps and nods and _prays_ for his stupid dick not to do that thing it’s been doing the last year at sometimes just a light breeze.  
  
Jared sits with him for the rest of the day. He offers a few times to go back to his team, not wanting Jensen to get bored or annoyed with him, but Jensen keep promising he’s happy for Jared to stay, so he does. Jensen is funny and easy to talk to. Jared asks if he has a girlfriend, and Jensen says he doesn’t with a funny look on his face, and then Jared tells him that Lindsey Sterling asked him out but he said no because she has this gross habit of chewing on her sleeves. Jensen chuckled, agreed that was gross, and said someone better would come along. He even sounded like he meant it. When Jared told his friends about Lindsey, they just made fun of him, like he’d catch some kind of girl disease from her by just saying her name out loud. Jared really likes that Jensen didn’t do that.  
  
He also really, really likes his green eyes.  
  
By the time the last game of the day has finished – Jared’s team came in third, which is pretty good since the tournament was state-wide – Jared’s decided he likes Jensen more than every single one of his friends and hates the idea that he’ll probably never see him again. He never even worked up the courage to ask Jensen if he lives in Houston or not, because he knows it wouldn’t matter. Jensen was nice to him today, but it’s not like they could ever actually be friends even if by some miracle or coincidence Jensen did happen to live ten minutes away from Jared. The thought still makes Jared a little sad. He feels like he has connection with Jensen; this thing in his chest that he can’t explain, telling him walking away from Jensen is a bad idea.  
  
He watches his team pack up from across the gym, and Jensen says, “Well, I guess you should go before they leave you behind.”  
  
“Yeah.” Jared sort of wishes they would.  
  
“You okay?” Jensen asks, nudging him on the arm.  
  
Jared nods, and tries to pretend he doesn’t want to stay as badly as he does. “It was … uh.”  
  
Jensen smiles (Jared’s stomach flips again) and holds out his hand. Jared takes it, and shakes it like a grown-up. “It was good to meet you, Jared.”  
  
“You too,” Jared agrees as he reluctantly gets up out of the chair to follow after his team.  
  
“Bye.”


	4. Chapter 4

[ ](http://s780.photobucket.com/user/storm_warning86/media/GIFs/4.jpg.html)

 

“What’re we doing here, Lex?” Jared asks, looking around warily at the sea of faces. He recognizes a lot of them, although he’s never met most. Others he’s said a maximum of five words to, in uncomfortable small talk at events exactly like this. Which is the reason he doesn’t _go_ to events exactly like this. This one is even worse than most, because it isn’t something a person or a few people organized and invited their friends to. It’s an event organized by studio executives for people who work on specific TV shows. Almost no one is here because they actually want to be. They’re here because it looks good for them to be here. It’s like five hundred moms got together and organized the world’s biggest and lamest play-date.  
  
“It’s a party,” Alexis answers, tugging awkwardly at her tiny dress. “Do I really need to explain the point to you?”  
           
“A party full of people I’ve never spoken to before.”  
  
“Yeah, I know. That _is_ the point. I know tons of people here, even if I don’t know them all well enough to invite them over for dinner or something. I at least know their names, what show they’re on, stuff like that. You’re an actor, Jared. These people are your colleagues. You should get to know them.”  
  
Jared shrugs and tries very hard not to gape like an idiot at what he’s pretty sure is Jessica Alba drunkenly making out with a chick. “I like the friends I already have.”  
  
Alexis shoots him a hard look. “Who live in Texas. I’m sure they’re great, but you live _here_ now. You can’t go through life living in a different state than every one of your friends.”  
  
“I’ve got you, don’t I?”  
  
“I can’t be your only friend. And besides, this isn’t only about making friends. It’s about networking. How do you expect to go anywhere after our show is finished if nobody in the business has ever heard of you?”  
  
“Five seconds ago you said it was a party. Now it’s an audition for future parts?”  
  
“Oh, would you just …!” she cries exasperatedly, and then rethinks yelling at him in public. Jared tries not to smile. Secretly he enjoys getting under her skin. “It’s both, alright? You’re good, Jared. You could go places. But booking gigs is just as much about who you know as it is about how talented you are.”  
  
She’s probably right about that, and it’s a depressing thought. “How did you get jaded so quickly?”  
  
“Being jaded is not the same thing as living in reality. If a part comes down to you and another guy, and a producer can say, ‘Oh yeah, Jared Padalecki, I remember him,’ don’t you think that gives you a better shot?”  
  
Jared shifts uncomfortably and looks around again. Once again, she’s right, but that doesn’t make Jared any happier about it. He really shouldn’t have let her talk him into coming here. He’s never been one to turn down a good party, but he’s having a lot of trouble getting into the whole _Hollywood_ thing. He’s an old-fashioned country boy. His idea of a good time is a football game or swinging into a creek off a tire tied to a tree. The glitz and glamour of parties like this doesn’t mix well with Jared’s personality. If he’s plaid, these people are sequins. If he’s beer, they’re some designer liquor Jared’s never even heard of. Not to mention the fact that there are some serious celebrities here, and Jared doesn’t have the first clue what he would say to any of them. His biggest fan is still his mom.  
  
“They’re just people, Jared,” Alexis says tiredly, reading Jared’s mind. She gets frustrated sometimes with what she calls his _farm-boy innocence_ , even though Jared is constantly reminding her he didn’t grow up on a farm.  
  
“Not people like me.”  
  
“What’s wrong with that? Do they really need to be Cowboys fans before you’ll even consider having a conversation with them?”  
  
“I guess not,” Jared relents, although his real answer is something more along the lines of _hell yes_. “You realize everyone here is gonna be plastered except us, right?”  
  
“Why? You plannin’ on driving later?”  
  
“Because neither of us are over 21.”  
  
She raises an eyebrow at him. “You think anyone cares about that?”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“It’s not about age in this town. It’s about how famous you are.”  
  
“I don’t think we’re all that famous.”  
  
“Are you kidding? You’re underestimating how much people talk about each other’s projects and stuff. I guarantee you almost every single person in this room knows who you are, even if they’ve never watched a single episode.”  
  
Jared blinks. “Seriously?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“That … that’s kinda creepy, actually.”  
  
Alexis laughs and hooks her arm through his. “That’s Hollywood, Padalecki. Get used to it.”  
  
“Alexis!” someone calls from across the room, barely audible over the thumping baseline of what Jared assumes is supposed to be music – although he has almost no evidence to support the assumption. They both look in the direction of the voice, and Jared’s height helps him spot the man waving before Alexis does, so he points.  
  
“C’mon,” Alexis says, tightening her grip on him and dragging him through the crowd.  
  
Two good-looking men are standing against a wall with beer bottles in their hands. One is probably in his early twenties and the other his early thirties, and the older one is taller but not as tall as Jared. The older one Jared doesn’t know at all; the younger one looks vaguely familiar but Jared can’t place him. They’re both in nice suits, one black and one a summery tan color, with no ties and the top few buttons of their pressed white shirts left open. They look somehow both intentionally fancy and effortlessly cool, and next to them and Alexis in her expensive outfit – _from_ _Europe_ , she’d informed him excitedly, as if that’s supposed to mean anything to him – Jared certainly _feels_ like a farm-boy despite always denying the accusation. Looking around a little, Jared realizes pretty much everyone is dressed up. He’s in jeans. He’s wearing a nice sweater, at least, because Alexis absolutely refused to let him leave his apartment in a t-shirt with Marvin the Martian on it, but even still Jared doesn’t look at all like he belongs here.  
  
  
“‘Sup kiddo?” the older man asks, and Alexis lets go of Jared’s arm to give the guy a brief hug.  
  
“Who let you in here?” she jokes, kissing him on the cheek and then stepping back.  
  
“Probably the same idiot who let you walk out of the store with that dress,” he jokes back, with a lopsided grin and the teasing lilt of an older brother.  
  
“Shut up!” Alexis smacks him playfully on the arm. “You’re awful, I don’t know why I ever talk to you.”  
  
“I’m a charming bastard. It’s why anybody ever talks to me.”  
  
Jared resists rolling his eyes, but barely. This is why he hates these types of parties. Everybody is so fake and schmoozy and it makes him nauseous. Alexis acts like a normal human being until she gets around other celebrities, and then she becomes this gross, loud, phony version of herself. Jared wishes she wouldn’t. She’s a perfectly likeable person without all the subterfuge.  
  
He looks over at the younger guy as Alexis and whoever the charming bastard is continue to chat. He’s probably about six feet tall, with spiky light-brown hair and green eyes and freckles on his nose. Jared _knows_ he’s seen him somewhere, and it’s going to bug him because he probably won’t figure it out. Probably the guy is an actor and Jared’s just seen him while flipping channels or on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard or something. The guy catches his eye, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head a little, which Jared interprets as _our friends are assholes, aren’t they?_ and that makes him laugh. Alexis and the other guy both stop talking abruptly to look at him, and Jared instantly feels like the world’s biggest dork. He tries really hard not to blush. It doesn’t work, and he’s going to use this later as proof when he reminds Alexis of how many times he told her he shouldn’t come tonight.  
  
“Oh!” Alexis cries, finally realizing Jared’s been standing there all this time waiting for her to remember that he exists. “Sorry. Uh, this is Michael Weatherly. And Mike, this is Jared Padalecki. He’s on the show with me.”  
  
“Good to meet you,” Michael says, holding out a hand that Jared takes and shakes briefly. Then he nods to the guy beside him and says, “This is Jensen Ackles.”  
  
Jared isn’t close enough to Jensen to shake his hand, so he just waves awkwardly and then feels like a moron again.  
  
Alexis barely glances at Jensen for a full second before she starts gabbing with Michael again, and Jared and Jensen both are forced to stand there uncomfortably for another few minutes. When she said she’d stay with him tonight, Jared didn’t exactly think that meant she was going to just stand _near_ him while she talks to other people. The look on Jensen’s face says he’s in a similar predicament, and when Jared catches his eye again, Jensen holds his fingers up to his head like a gun and mimes shooting himself. Jared doesn’t laugh out loud this time, but he smiles and Jensen smiles back. Jensen gestures between Jared and Alexis, eyebrows raised in question, asking if they’re together, and Jared shakes his head. He does the same between Jensen and Michael, hoping Jensen takes it as a joke, and Jensen smiles wider, practically all twenty-eight of his straight, white teeth showing, and gives Jared the finger.  
  
Jared’s trying to decide how to mime asking Jensen if he’s an actor, when a female voice screeches, “Oh my god, Lexi!” from across the room.  
  
Alexis whips around to locate the source of the sound, and then practically squeals in excitement when she sees whoever it is. “Ah! Okay, I gotta go. Mike, it was so nice seeing you! Have a good night, okay?”  
  
Jared splutters a protest that she either doesn’t hear or doesn’t pay attention to, and then she’s gone and he huffs in annoyance watching her teeter away in her ridiculous heels.  
  
“Everything okay?” Michael asks, with a judgmentally raised eyebrow, and suddenly Jared’s right back to high school – to being the gawky, awkward teenager, stranded accidentally with the cool kids.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, trying to play it off. “She just promised she wouldn’t ditch me.”  
  
“She’ll be back,” Michael says with a casual shrug. “She’s gotta go home with you anyway, right? Relax, enjoy the break.”  
  
“What? No, we’re not … she’s not my girlfriend,” Jared says, although he’s not sure why he’s bothering to explain. It’s not like he’ll ever see either of these people again. He’s also not sure how someone who seemed to be such a good friend of hers wouldn’t know that Alexis _has_ a boyfriend, and it isn’t Jared.  
  
“Alright,” Michael says, both eyebrows up now, like he’s not sure why he’s supposed to care. Jared instantly likes Jensen about a hundred times more than this guy, and Jensen hasn’t said a single word yet. Jared thinks he should have known that right away based solely on the fact that Jensen’s the one in the black suit. Jeff told him once that only idiots wear colored suits. Jared thought it was dumb. Now he doesn’t. “Well, I see an old friend, guys, excuse me.”  
  
He leaves, and even his walk is cool. He doesn’t lumber like Jared does.  
  
“He said he wouldn’t ditch me, either,” Jensen says after Michael is gone. His voice sounds like Jared is expecting it to, which makes him wonder if he’s heard it before.  
  
Jared looks at him. “Really?”  
  
“It’s not a big deal.” Jensen smiles at him tentatively. “These kind of parties aren’t really my thing, that’s all.”  
  
“God, they’re not my thing either,” Jared groans, leaning against the wall behind himself and running his hands over his face. “Lex dragged me here ‘cause she said I needed to meet people.”  
  
“You can stay here and hang with me if you want.”  
  
That’s exactly what Jared wants, he just didn’t want to be the one to say it. Relief washes over him like a warm blanket. “Really? You don’t mind?”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “What else am I gonna do? Mingle? At least you’re someone who wishes they weren’t here as much as I do.”  
  
Jared laughs, and then reaches over and claps Jensen on the shoulder gratefully. “Thanks, man. Glad I met you.”  
  
“We, um.” Jensen pauses and chews at his bottom lip for a moment before he continues, like he’s not sure he wants to voice what’s on his mind. Jared watches, momentarily distracted, as Jensen’s lip slides out from between his stupidly perfect teeth. “We actually met already. Years ago.”  
  
Jared frowns. “We did?”  
  
“Basketball tournament in Houston. I was the time-keeper. You twisted your ankle.”  
  
For a moment, Jared has no idea what Jensen’s talking about. And then he gapes at him as the memory comes back to him. He’d all but forgotten about that day, and the nice, green-eyed teenager who helped him and then sat with him all day when he couldn’t play. He’d also forgotten about maybe sort of having a silly teenage crush on the guy, but he damn well remembers now. The idea that he maybe had a crush on a guy had freaked Jared out for weeks; only slightly less than the fact that he kept dreaming about mossy green eyes and freckles and wishing he could see Jensen again. “Wait, that was you?”  
  
“How many Jensens do you know?” Jensen asks with a wry smile, and yeah, Jared _definitely_ remembers that smile. Jensen is older but he’s exactly as gorgeous as he was at seventeen – and Jared’s exactly as uncomfortable with those thoughts.  
  
“I – just one, I guess,” Jared answers with a laugh. “Holy crap, that was really you? This is crazy. Man, how did you even put it together? That was forever ago, I was like thirteen.”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “I knew your whole name, ‘cause you were on the list I had of all the kids. Guess I just never forgot it. I saw an ad for your show a few weeks ago, and I was like hey, I know that guy.”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “Man, that’s weird. I would never have remembered that.”  
  
“How’s the ankle?” Jensen asks, and it takes Jared a second to realize he’s joking.  
  
“Well my basketball career never took off, but I guess I did okay anyway.”  
  
Jensen chuckles and nods. “Yes you did. So how long have you lived out here?”  
  
“Not that long. Haven’t even really made any friends yet, other than Alexis. That’s why she made me come here. Apparently being a recluse is unacceptable.”  
  
“So fun, though, right? Sometimes I think I’d be way happier with just one or two really good friends instead of a bunch of sort-of friends.”  
  
“I like people. I just don’t really like _these_ people,” Jared says, gesturing into the throng.  
  
“ _These_ people don’t even like themselves. Or each other.”  
  
“So you’re a cynic,” Jared sums up, looking over and Jensen and grinning.  
  
Jensen chuckles again. “Ish.”  
  
“I keep trying not to be. It’s not always so easy, though.”  
  
“It definitely isn’t.”  
  
“Hey, um, weird question. You’re from Texas, right?”  
  
“I am. Why?”  
  
“Cowboys or Texans?”  
  
Jensen frowns and looks confused by the question, but then answers, “Cowboys. Obviously.”  
  
Jared laughs loudly and cries, “Right?”  
  
“Is that important?” Jensen asks, half smiling and half frowning.  
  
“Conversation I was having earlier with someone. Doesn’t matter.”  
  
It does matter. Jared’s just not going to tell him that.  
  
“Okay.” Jensen eyes him a little but still looks amused. “Hey, there’s a table free over there. You wanna go talk about football?”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
____  
  
The music is too loud – that annoying club music that’s mostly the thump of a subwoofer because the higher pitches of the melody and vocals are drowned out by the low din of people. Jared doesn’t like this type of music even when he can actually hear more of it than just the reverb in his chest. The table Jensen snags for them is in a little alcove and is a ways away from the DJ booth so it’s quiet enough to talk, though, and Jared completely loses track of how much time has passed while he chats with Jensen. It’s at least a few hours, and Alexis hasn’t resurfaced and Jared doesn’t care for a minute. The club smells like sticky bodies and spilt beer and every few minutes a girl streaks by them in alcohol fueled, makeup melting tears; a girlfriend chasing after her towards the bathroom, just like the dances Jared loathed in high school. Jared knows he would have been miserable tonight if he hadn’t found Jensen.  
  
Instead, he has more fun than he’s had in a long time. Talking to Jensen is so easy Jared feels like they’ve known each other forever. Like this guy is actually his friend, even though they just met. Then Jared remembers that they _didn’t_ just meet, and wonders if that has something to do with it.  
  
“So are you on a show, or …?” Jared wishes he knew so he wouldn’t sound like such a snob asking that question, especially since Jensen knew who he was. He knows now about the basketball game years ago, but he still thinks he recognizes Jensen from somewhere else too. Something more recent.  
  
“It’s called Dark Angel.”  
  
“Oh. That sounds familiar. Sorry, I’m not, like, too cool for your show or something. I’m not too cool for anything. I just don’t really watch a lot of TV.”  
  
“Except football,” Jensen points out. His eyes sparkle when he smiles.  
  
“Except football,” Jared agrees. “So, are you the angel?”  
  
Jensen chuckles. Jared likes the way it sounds. “No. No one is an angel. That’s just the name.”  
  
“What’s it about?”  
  
“Genetically enhanced super-soldiers.”  
  
“Sounds cool.”  
  
Jensen wrinkles his nose. “It isn’t. But whatever, it’s a living. It’s better than Days.”  
  
“Days?” He should probably know what that is too. He’s possibly the biggest dork in history.  
  
“Of Our Lives,” Jensen clarifies. “It’s a soap.”  
  
“Ah. That wasn’t fun?”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “It was a foot in the door. Do you like your show?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess. It’s a little girly. Or a lot girly. But we have a good time on set, so that’s good. And it gets my name out, so that’s good too.”  
  
“Do you wanna do movies?”  
  
“I’m not picky. I just … I wanna do something amazing, you know? Something that …” Jared trails off, because he’s not sure how to describe it. He wants to be part of something important, something that affects people. Something to be remembered for.  
  
“I know what you mean,” Jensen says with a reassuring nod. “I do too.”  
  
“You think we will?”  
  
Jensen smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Depends. Are you any good?”  
  
Jared laughs. “I don’t know. Probably not.”  
  
“I was kidding.” Jensen nudges his arm with the tips of his fingers. “I’m sure you’re great.”  
  
“What about you?”  
  
The sparkle in Jensen’s eyes fades just a little bit, and something changes in him even though he tries to hide it. “Good enough, I guess.”  
  
Jared frowns. “Did I say something wrong?”  
  
“No, I … no. You didn’t.” Jensen shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. He rests his arms on the table and looks down into the almost empty glass. Jared shifts uncomfortably. Jensen looks so sad all of a sudden, and Jared hates thinking it might be his fault. “You ever wonder if … I don’t know. That you’re just a pretty face? That people only like you because …”  
  
Honestly, Jared hasn’t. He gets why Jensen would though. Jared isn’t attracted to guys, but Jensen is kind of beautiful. In that classic way, like a marble statue from ancient Greece. “I don’t think I’m that pretty.”  
  
Jensen smiles just a little. “The whole self-deprecating thing works for you.”  
  
“I don’t think looks are the only thing that gets people a job in this business,” Jared says, although he’s not completely sure that’s true. “I mean, it helps. But if you were a shitty actor they’d have given your job so some other hot guy.”  
  
Jensen smiles more, and it takes Jared a second to realize he just called Jensen a hot guy.  
  
He flushes and rolls his eyes at himself. “You know what I meant.”  
  
“I do,” Jensen says, but he laughs a little anyway and he’s all wide grins and crinkled eyes again, and then Jared isn’t so embarrassed anymore.  
  
“I’m awkward.”  
  
“Well I’ve been sitting here with you all night, so clearly I don’t mind.”  
  
“Or you don’t have anything better to do.”  
  
“That’s true, but it’s not the only reason.”  
  
Jared is about to ask what Jensen means, when out of the corner of his eye he sees Alexis staggering towards their table. A moment later she’s there, shoving her way onto the bench beside him and draping herself drunkenly against his side.  
  
“Here you are,” she says, a slight slur to her words.  
  
“Hey.” Jared pats her arm uncomfortably and shoots an apologetic glance at Jensen. “What’s up?”  
  
“Wanna go home.”  
  
“Okay. Want me to call you a cab?”  
  
“No.” She turns her face into his shoulder. “Come with me.”  
  
Jared’s heart stutters a little and he looks at Jensen again, gauging his reaction. For whatever reason, it’s really important to him that Jensen doesn’t think Jared was lying about not being her boyfriend. Jensen’s looking down at his hands, but not really like he’s uncomfortable. More like he’s trying not to eavesdrop on their conversation even though he’s sitting two feet away from them. He’s probably the first person Jared’s met out here who would care about something like that, and Jared’s struck again by how much he likes this person, how much it sort of feels like they’ve been friends for years even though they haven’t.  
  
“We don’t live together,” Jared points out anyway, just in case Jensen was getting the wrong idea.  
  
“I _know_ ,” Alexis lifts her head up and swats him. “Just come with me. Get me home. Then you can leave.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes. He’s still annoyed with her for leaving him, even though he ended up having a way more awesome time with Jensen than he would have if she’d stayed. “Oh, so you get me to come tonight by promising you’ll stay with me the whole time, and then you take off after we’ve been here for ten minutes, ignore me for the whole night, and now you want me to be your escort? It’s not my fault you’re drunk, Lex.”  
  
“Come _on_ ,” she whines, and Jared’s about to refuse, when Jensen speaks up.  
  
“I gotta get goin’ anyway,” he says, looking as disappointed about it as Jared feels.  
  
“Oh. Really?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jensen smiles at him like he’s really sorry for it. “Shooting tomorrow, I gotta catch a flight so I can get a few hours sleep before I head to the studio. The make-up girls yell at me if I look tired.”  
  
“Where’s the studio?”  
  
“Vancouver. That’s where we film the show.”  
  
“Oh.” Jared nods. “Uh, okay. Well hey, listen, man …”  
  
“Yeah.” Jensen smiles again, except this time it’s bright and happy and lights up his whole face, and Jared’s brain goes fuzzy for just a second. “I had a good time, too. Maybe I’ll see you at the next one?”  
  
“I hope so.” Jared returns his smile, and the way Jensen’s cheeks flush just slightly sends a tiny thrill through Jared that he doesn’t understand even remotely. He shoves gently at Alexis, helping her up and holding her arm to steady her.  
  
“Kay, well … see you around?” Jensen asks, holding out his hand.  
  
Jared takes it, wishing for a moment that there wasn’t a drunk girl pressed up against his side so he could pull Jensen into a hug. “Yeah. Have a good one.”  
  
“You too. Bye.”


	5. Chapter 5

[ ](http://s780.photobucket.com/user/storm_warning86/media/GIFs/5.jpg.html)

 

It’s been about six weeks since Eric Kripke called and told Jared he got the part. The character’s name is Sam Winchester. The show is called Supernatural, because Sam fights ghosts and werewolves and whatever else with his older brother. Jared read the pilot episode before he auditioned and loved it. It’s funny and scary and full of _heart_. It has depth to it in a way Gilmore Girls never did. Even after reading that one episode, Jared is hooked. If he wasn’t signed on to be in it, he could still see himself being a big fan of the show if – hopefully _when_ – it gets to TV. The characters are awesome and likable and _real_. Sam is passionate and brave and smart. Dean is quick-witted and cocky but vulnerable underneath. They have been separated for a few years but there is still such a strong bond between them, and Jared loves that. He loves the idea of a show about family, that’s one thing he _did_ like about Gilmore Girls. But this one just has a spark to it, something unexplainable that Jared is drawn to. He’s completely optimistic that this could be his _it_ – the important, special project he’s been waiting for.  
  
And then Eric said they’d cast the Dean character too, and Jared was excited about that until Eric spoke the words “Jensen Ackles” and then Jared’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds. It couldn’t be. The guy Jared had one of the most memorable nights of his life with at that party, the guy he felt so instantly connected to in a way he couldn’t and still can’t explain. Ever since that night, every now and then Jared thinks about Jensen, about how easy it was to talk to him, how it felt like they were lifelong best friends only minutes after meeting. When he thinks about that, he usually ends up kicking himself for not getting Jensen’s number. He couldn’t think of a way to ask for it at the time that wouldn’t have sounded like he wanted it to ask Jensen on a date and he didn’t want Jensen to get the wrong idea. But Jared still doesn’t have a ton of close friends here, except for Chad, but that’s relatively new, and he had such a great time with Jensen that more than a few times in the last couple years he’s found himself wishing he could give Jensen a call.  
  
Now, not only is Jared going to get to see Jensen again, but he’s going to be shooting a pilot with him? Possibly getting picked up for a whole _season_ in a show where he and Jensen are the main characters? It’s more than a dream come true. Jared’s so excited he’s beside himself.  
  
Another week later, Eric calls them to a studio in Vancouver to meet each other and everyone else. Jared packs a backpack, as nervous and excited as a kid packing for his first week at sleep-away camp, kisses Sandy goodbye with the promise to call when he gets there, and gets on a plane heading toward what feels so much like the thing that’s going to change Jared’s life forever.  
  
The passengers sitting beside him are even more thrilled than Jared is when they finally land in Vancouver, because Jared’s leg had been bouncing in anticipation for the entire flight. A car picks him up at the airport, and he talks the driver’s ear off about everything and nothing and doesn’t even bother to ask the guy’s name, which he feels bad about later. By the time they arrive at the studio Jared has whipped himself up into a frenzy. This is it, he can feel it. The studio looks more or less like every other one he’s been on, closed sets and soundstages and boring-looking buildings where they make magic inside, but there’s something about this place. Something that feels like it’s where Jared is supposed to be.  
  
The guy who drove him here – Jared’s going to have to ask for his name if he ever sees him again – leads him into a hallway with a few chairs and not much else, much like the one in L.A. Jared sat in before his audition. He’s probably supposed to sit and wait for someone to come out of the door at the end of the hall, but Jared can’t sit down so instead he paces. Maybe five minutes pass before he hears voices coming from the direction he and the driver did. Then two men walk around the corner. The first one is Eric Kripke, the short-ish guy with the bald head and the kind eyes who’d smiled through Jared’s whole audition and raved about it afterward. And the sight of the second man takes Jared’s breath away for a moment.  
  
He looks exactly like Jared remembered him. Shorter than Jared but still tall. Lean with broad shoulders. Legs slightly bowed in a way that’s sort of endearing and adds a lilt to his steps. Light brown hair tinged blond on the ends like he spends a lot of time in the sun. Bright green eyes. That electric, too-many-teeth smile. Then he looks up at Jared and grins, his eyes sparkling and wrinkling around the edges. Jared suddenly can’t feel his own face.  
  
“Jared! You’re already here, that’s great,” Eric says enthusiastically. He walks over and holds out a hand that Jared shakes.  
  
“Good to see you again,” Jared answers, able to take his eyes off Jensen for long enough to return his new boss’s smile.  
  
“I’m so excited to get started!” Eric continues, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “This story has been my baby for so long, I can’t tell you how stoked I am to actually be standing here with Sam and Dean. You guys, I gotta say, are perfect. Just how I imagined. It’s weird because I never told anyone this, but I always thought Sam should be taller. I can’t even explain why, that’s just how I pictured them. Oh! Sorry, I forgot. Jared Padalecki, this is Jensen Ackles. Jensen; Jared.”  
  
Jensen shoots a blinding, megawatt smile at him. “Hey, man. Long time.”  
  
“Doesn’t feel like it,” Jared says, smiling back. He holds up his hand and Jensen takes it, and this time Jared does pull him into a one-armed hug. He can’t help it.  
  
“I think you got taller.” Jensen hugs him back and holds on for just a breath longer than Jared does. “Which is unfair, by the way.”  
  
“You guys know each other?” Eric asks, eyebrows raised.  
  
“We met once, a while back,” Jensen answers.  
  
Twice, is the real answer, but Jared doesn’t correct him. He says, “This guy saved me from a slow, boring, Hollywood-party death.”  
  
“They’re the worst,” Jensen agrees. He’s talking to both of them, but his eyes are glued to Jared’s. “I’ve been to a few since then, always find myself wishing you were there to bail me out.”  
  
“Did the makeup girls end up being pissed at you?”  
  
“No.” Jensen grins even wider. “Did you get that drunk chick back to her place without being molested?”  
  
Jared laughs loudly. “Barely.”  
  
“Do you guys still hang out?”  
  
“Not really. I saw her a couple times after I wasn’t on the show anymore, but it’s hard to keep up with everyone, you know? What about that guy you were with, you still friends with him?”  
  
“Weatherly?” Jensen rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “He wasn’t a _friend_ friend. He was a we-work-together-so-we-might-as-well-get-a

long friend. Not the kinda guy you keep in touch with when the show goes tits-up after two seasons.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, man. Sorry to hear it.”

Jensen shrugs. “No big. I found other stuff, so.”

“You certainly did. Heard about that too. Smallville is cool, but Dawson’s Creek?” Jared teases.

Jensen smacks him on the arm. “Hey, I am _not_ taking any flak for that from a guy who was in a movie with the Olsen twins.”

“Crap. Yeah, I was kinda hoping you’d missed that one.”

“Oh, I saw it. I saw it because you were in it, and it was embarrassing.”

“Yes it was,” Jared chuckles.

“Um.”

The soft noise beside them makes both Jensen and Jared look over at Eric, who’s looking back and forth between them with confused expression and a slight frown on his face. Honestly, Jared had momentarily forgotten he was there.

They both say, “Sorry,” at the same time, and then Jensen says, “Uh, sorry, are we supposed to be somewhere?”

Eric shakes his head. “Not yet. Just thought you guys said you only met once.”

“We did.” Jared doesn’t like the frantic, defensive feeling that bubbles up in his chest. The look on Eric’s face makes Jared feel like they’re being accused of having an affair or something. “I mean, it was just one night. We talked a lot. That’s all. Just talked.”

He looks over at Jensen for backup, but Jensen is flushed and staring resolutely at his shoes.

“Okay,” Eric says slowly, like he’s not sure he believes them. “Well, uh, we’re just setting up for the meet-and-greet and the read and everything, so I’ll have someone come back for you when it’s all ready, alright? You can wait in there.”

He nods at the room at the end of the hall that Jared assumed was an office, and by the time Jared looks back he’s walking away in the other direction. He catches Jensen’s eye and they both grimace sheepishly.

“Maybe not the best first impression,” Jensen says quietly, with faint lines of worry on his forehead.

Secretly, Jared agrees, but he’s struck with the urge to do whatever he can to take that look off Jensen’s face. “Nah. He just didn’t expect us to know each other, that’s all. C’mon.”

He leads Jensen into the little room, which turns out to be like a waiting room, with a few couches and comfy looking chairs lining the walls. Jared picks one end of a couch to flop down in, and is pleasantly surprised when Jensen sits next to him.

“So, really, man. Dawson’s Creek?” Jared asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging. But you said you hated being on a soap. Isn’t that just a soap they air at night?”

“You know what I hate more?” Jensen says, the tiniest hint of bitterness in his voice. “Not being able to pay the bills.”

Jared frowns and turns to him on the seat. “Shit, were things really that bad?”

Jensen sighs. “No. I’m being dramatic. But, I mean, you know how it is. It’s not like I’m Brad Pitt, gettin’ six or seven movie offers a week. You’re lucky if something amazing comes along. Otherwise you take what you can get.”

“You know, when I read the script for this thing? I kinda thought maybe this might be my something amazing. Like, how we talked about that night? Finding something important, something to be remembered for?”

“You think?” Jensen asks, looking up at him with cautious optimism in his eyes.

“I really do. I read the episode we’re gonna shoot and I don’t know, it just felt like …”

“Something special?” Jensen finishes, and Jared nods emphatically.

“Definitely. And then I heard you were gonna be the Dean character and I just thought … this is crazy, but it feels like …”

“Meant to be?” Jensen supplies with a small smile on his face.

“Do you believe in that?”

“Not really. But I loved the script. I loved Dean. And you’re one of the few people I’ve met since I’ve lived in L.A. who I don’t secretly hate behind their back, so.” Jensen shrugs and laughs a little. “That’s gotta be something.”

Jared laughs too. “You’re really not into Hollywood, huh?”

“Are you?” Jensen asks with an adorably wrinkled nose.

“I guess not. My friend Chad – do you know Chad Michael Murray?”

Jensen snorts. “Who doesn’t. Well, no. I know _of_ him, I guess.”

Jared feels a slight surge of protectiveness for his friend. Chad doesn’t have the best reputation and it isn’t entirely deserved. “He’s a good guy.”

“Okay. I believe you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not? I’ve never met him. I mean, people talk and things get around that aren’t always the truth. So if you say he’s okay then I trust you.”

For some reason, Jensen’s words send this little tremor up Jared’s spine that he’s not sure he even _wants_ to understand. Half of him suddenly wants to call Sandy, and the other half terrifyingly wants to never call her again. “Yeah. Um, so anyway, he’s been trying to get me into the scene a little more since we met last year. Or I guess two years ago now. The clubs and the A-list parties and stuff. I don’t know, though. It’s not really my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

Jared leans back on the couch and stretches his legs out in front of him. “Just hanging out, I guess. I like live music. Sports. Animals. Ordinary stuff.”

“Do you have animals?”

“Two dogs. I’m so crazy about them.”

“I like dogs,” Jensen says with a small smile. “Cats, not so much.”

“What about you?”

Jensen’s quiet for a moment, like he’s considering the question. “I like some music. Older stuff mostly, this pop garbage drives me nuts. I like boats. Like, being on one. Someday I wanna own one, so I can go out on weekends and just leave everything behind. And I like people who are who they are, which I guess is why the Hollywood scene and me don’t mesh very well.”

Jared nods. That, he completely agrees with. “Everybody has an agenda. Or something stupid to prove.”

“People are only nice to you if they want something,” Jensen adds, that note of sadness back in his voice that makes Jared wonder if he’s speaking from a particularly bad experience with someone.

Jared tips his head back on the top of the cushion and then rolls it over to look at Jensen. “Okay. So if this pilot gets picked up and we become a real show? I promise I’ll never act like that if you don’t.”

“Deal,” Jensen says, returning Jared’s smile.

“And by the way,” Jared adds, reaching over and poking Jensen playfully on the arm, “even if we don’t get picked up, I am not leaving this building without your number. This is now the third time we’ve just randomly ended up together? I don’t care what you believe, that is a sign. You are supposed to be my new best friend.”

Jensen laughs, and it sounds bright and happy like tossing gravel onto sheet metal. “Not sure whether I should be creeped out by that.”

“If you can name one friend you actually have who’s cooler than me, I’ll leave you alone forever,” Jared jokes, even though no, he won’t.

“Can’t do it,” Jensen says with a shrug and another laugh. “And I’m friends with rock stars, so that’s saying something.”

Jared’s eyes widen. “What rock stars do you know?”

“Okay, country-rock stars,” Jensen relents. “Do you know Christian Kane?”

Jared frowns. “The name sounds kinda familiar.”

“He’s an actor. And a musician, obviously. He’s got a band. They’re like that Southern kinda rock. Like 38 Special.”

“And he’s not as cool as me?” Jared asks, smiling like crazy when Jensen laughs again.

“No, he isn’t.”

“Well, that’s bad news for you. I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Guess I am.” The smile Jensen sends his way makes Jared feel like if he climbed to the top of this building and jumped off it, he would just float back down safely to the ground.

____

All in all, the whole day is fantastic. Eric introduces them to the producers and the cast of the episode and a few other people whose exact roles Jared is unsure of, and they’re all nice and enthusiastic and Jared likes every one of them. The guy playing their dad is Jared’s second favorite, after Jensen. They won’t actually be shooting any scenes with him for this one episode, but Eric says if the show gets picked up the father character will be in it a lot, so Jared’s hopeful he’ll get to know Jeff better at some point. He thinks it was an awesome casting choice, too, because Jeff totally looks like he could be Jensen’s father.

“He looks like you,” Jensen says quietly after Jeff and Eric walk away, discussing something about the script.

Jared’s eyebrows fly up toward his hairline. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, why?”

“‘Cause I was gonna say he looks like you. You have the same eyes.”

Jensen laughs. “Well, I guess he’s a good pick to be our dad then.”

The table-read is fun and Jared thinks it goes really well. He’s nervous before it starts because he loves the script so much and he wants to do Sam justice, but Eric seems impressed. Jensen has everyone chuckling with his smooth, cocky Dean, and after they read the electrically charged scene where Sam and Dean fight on the bridge, Jared hears someone breathe a soft, reverent, “Wow.” Jared read every word on these pages over and over again when he was preparing for this, wanting to get it exactly right, but as soon as he and Jensen start reading together, everything Jared had practiced just flies out the window. He just says the lines, without thinking, reacting off Jensen and feeling Sam from somewhere deep inside his chest instead of his brain. It’s easy and natural and by the time they’re finished, Jared’s pretty damn sure this _is_ the something special he’s been waiting for.

He asks Jensen if he wants to grab some dinner with him and feels like Jensen knows him well enough now that he doesn’t need to worry it will sound like asking him on a date. (There’s also a teeny, tiny part of Jared that doesn’t hate the idea of _actually_ asking Jensen on a date, but that’s probably just because he misses Sandy. Or whatever.) Jensen agrees, and they find a little pizza place not too far from the studio. It’s late, so the place is nearly empty, which is nice because even though Jared isn’t exactly Tom Cruise levels of famous he still gets recognized sometimes and he isn’t in the mood for that tonight. He just wants to talk to Jensen.

“So that went well, don’t you think?” Jensen asks as they eat.

Jared takes a moment to swallow a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni before he answers. “I think it went awesome! I can’t wait to shoot this thing.”

Jensen nods. “Everyone seems cool.”

“It would be so amazing if it got picked up. The show would be so good and it would be just you and me in most of the scenes, and we’d just shoot and hang out and …” Jared realizes too late that he’s babbling like an over-excited kid at Disney World, has stopped making sense, and that Jensen is staring at him. Jensen doesn’t look weirded out; he looks amused, and that’s almost worse. “Sorry. I talk too much. You can tell me to shut up.”

Jensen smiles a little and shakes his head. “It’s fine, man. I don’t want you to shut up.”

Jared raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Jensen shrugs. “Yeah. I … I like your enthusiasm. I could learn a thing or two from you, probably, about … I don’t know. Optimism.”

“Do you not think we’re gonna get picked up?”

“I …” Jensen pauses to think for a moment before he speaks, but he doesn’t say ‘no’. “I think it would be really, really great if it did.”

“I guess that’s better than nothing,” Jared jokes, flicking the back of Jensen’s hand playfully. “Don’t worry. I can be optimistic enough for both of us.”

“I have absolutely no trouble believing that,” Jensen says, with another one of his blinding smiles. Jared’s not sure he’ll ever get used to those.

Jared smiles back and then goes back to concentrating on eating for a minute or two. “It’s been forever since I’ve had pizza. My girlfriend is a health nut.”

There’s another long pause before Jensen answers, and just a tiny bit of the sparkle goes out of his eyes for a second as he says, “Oh.” Then it comes right back when he adds, “Well, I know a ton of good restaurants in L.A. If we get a series outta this thing, I’ll take you to all of them. There’s a place in West Hollywood that makes a New York Strip that, swear to God, is better than sex. Or at least as good as.”

“Oh man,” Jared groans. “I have to sneak steak with her around. She thinks it causes Alzheimer’s or something. I’m from Texas, man, we run on beef. I really don’t know why I ever let her convince me shit like chickpeas and kale are things that should be ingested. Have you ever tried kale? It’s disgusting.”

“That settles it, then. You and me are going out one night and we’re gonna eat good steak until we wish we were dead.”

“It’s been way too long since I’ve been in a good meat coma,” Jared says, and Jensen laughs loudly, tossing his head back for a second. Jared’s pretty sure as long as he lives he’s never going to stop loving the sound of that laugh.

Looking at Jensen now, Jared is shot right back to how he felt the first time they met all those years ago in Houston. More than once in the few years since they talked at that party, Jared has found himself thinking about it. He remembers thinking Jensen was _so_ cool, older and good-looking and confident, and feeling like the luckiest person on the planet that this intimidatingly awesome older kid actually wanted to spend time with him. Jared isn’t really self-conscious about his personality but he is aware that he can be a giant dork sometimes. His friendship with someone like Chad makes sense, because they’re both loud and goofy and ridiculous. But even nearly a decade later, Jensen is still exactly as cool as he was back then. He’s confident and smooth and a little aloof in that way that makes people always come back for more. Jared feels exactly like that thirteen-year-old kid he’d been; out-of-his-mind amazed that this person is even giving him the time of day.

The other thing is, Jensen was different with Jared today than he was with everyone else. Jared didn’t notice that right away but once he did, he couldn’t _stop_ noticing it. With the other cast members, the producers – even Eric, who Jared finds so friendly and approachable – Jensen was courteous, polite, and completely professional, but almost not in a good way. He treated them like new coworkers, which Jared does realize is exactly what they are, but with Jared, he’s different. He smiles, he laughs; he lets his guard down a little in this tantalizing way that makes Jared wish he’d let it down all the way. There’s a slight air of mystery to the guy sitting across the table from him, in that rakish James Dean way, and it has Jared craving to know every one of his secrets. Everything that makes him happy and angry and sad, everything he’s ever hoped for and been scared of.

Jared can’t remember the last time he felt a connection this strong to someone he, in actuality, barely knows at all. It’s been making his heart run just a few beats too fast all day long.

“So, listen,” Jensen starts, sounding apologetic. “I’m supposed to meet a couple friends pretty soon.”

“Oh.” Jared is disappointed because they’re having fun, but he has to be at the airport in less than an hour anyway so it’s actually good timing. “Okay, well hey, today was really fun.”

“It’s some people from Smallville,” Jensen continues as if Jared hadn’t said anything. “Tom Welling, Mike Rosenbaum, I’m not sure who else. They film up here. Tom heard I’d be here today and wanted us to get together. But, um, you should come. They’re good guys, you’d like them.”

Jared opens his mouth to say that he can’t, but Jensen holds up his hands and interrupts before Jared gets a word out; misinterpreting why Jared’s declining the offer.

“I’m not saying that just to be nice, I swear. I had a great time with you today, and I think they’d like you too. So, come.”

Sincerity shines in Jensen’s clear green eyes and Jared’s stomach flips over itself a few times, a warm feeling buzzing in Jared’s chest that already feels addictive. “I would. I’d love to, I just can’t. I’m flying back to L.A. tonight, I gotta head to the airport really soon.”

“Ah. That sucks.”

“Yeah. Otherwise I would.”

Jensen nods. He looks a little disappointed, but not like he thinks Jared’s lying to get out of spending more time with him. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you in a month, I guess.”

“Yeah. Can’t wait.”

Jensen reaches into his pocket for his wallet, but Jared reaches out a hand to stop him.

“It’s on me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Sure I do. You spent a whole day keeping a dorky kid company at a basketball game so he wouldn’t feel bad about not being able to play. About time I returned the favor.”

Jensen smiles a little, breathing a small laugh and then nodding. “Alright. Fair enough. Next one’s on me, then.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Jared pays and they leave the restaurant together – Jensen calls for a cab and Jared waits with him until it comes.

“You want a ride back to the studio?”

Jared shakes his head. “It’s only a few blocks. I like the fresh air.” Truthfully, he just isn’t sure he’s okay with how much he really wants to be in the dark backseat of a cab with Jensen.

“Um.” Jensen scratches the back of his neck and looks away for a second. “So, even if this thing never goes any further than one episode, we should still hang. Back in L.A.”

“Yeah?” Jared asks, not even a little bit able to hide how hopeful he sounds about that idea.

“Yeah.” Jensen shoots him a quick, shy half-smile. “Like I said, I don’t know a lotta people I can have a real conversation with, y’know?”

“I don’t either.”

“I like how excited you get about stuff. The people I know can be so cynical. They make me like that too.” Jensen sniffs and looks back at the ground, like he’s uncomfortable being this honest. “I kinda think hangin’ out with you would make me …”

He pauses for almost a full minute, and Jared holds his breath. He has no idea what Jensen’s going to say but he wants to hear it anyway, and he feels like if he moves or talks or even breathes too loudly, it will snap Jensen out of the moment.

“When I first moved out here, I think I was more like you. But then you get a few parts that aren’t what you thought they’d be, and that one great thing keeps not coming along, and you get all hardened and pessimistic about it. About everything.”

“Supernatural is gonna be our one great thing, Jensen. I can feel it,” Jared says, softly because he feels like he’s getting to see a piece of Jensen right now that almost no one ever does and he doesn’t want to break the spell. “The way it felt in that room today … I can’t explain it. There’s something there, you know? It was like …”

“Magic?” Jensen supplies with a small smile.

“Exactly.”

“Yeah. I hope you’re right. Anyway.” Jensen gives himself a tiny shake, almost imperceptible, and then the breezy, confident guy from before is back. “If you wanted to hang out some time, that’d be cool. But it’s cool if you don’t.”

“Gimme your phone,” Jared says, noticing out of the corner of his eye that a taxi is heading their way from up the street.

Jensen does without questioning why, and Jared puts his home and cell-phone numbers into it.

“You better call me,” he says, handing the phone back to Jensen. “I’m not into playing hard-to-get.”

Jensen gives him a real smile, and then pulls him into a brief hug as the taxi slows to a stop in front of them. “I will. See you soon.”

Jared swallows thickly and tries very, very hard not to think about how good Jensen smells or the way the skin on the back of his neck is tingling where Jensen’s hand touched it. “Yeah, man. Bye.”


	6. Chapter 6

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“We did it,” is the first thing Jensen’s voice says when Jared picks up the phone.  
  
Jared practically flails in excitement. “Kripke called you too?”  
  
“We did it!” Jensen shouts, sounding exactly as ecstatic as Jared feels. “We got a whole season!  
  
“Hell yes we did!” Jared shouts back. “We’re on a show.”  
  
“I can’t stop pacing. Seriously. I don’t even know what to do with myself.”  
  
If Jared had been excited when he first heard the good news twenty minutes ago, it’s _nothing_ compared to now – to hearing the usually stoic Jensen sound like a little kid on Christmas. Jared can honestly say he has never in his whole life had as much fun as he did during the two weeks it took them to shoot the pilot episode a few months ago. The idea that it’s going to be his _job_ now to make a great show and goof around with Jensen at the same time is more than a dream come true. “Are you in L.A.?”  
  
“Yeah, you?”  
  
“Damn straight, so I’ll _tell_ you what to do with yourself. We are going out to celebrate. Right now.”  
  
“I’m supposed to have a date.”  
  
“So tell her I’m more important!” Jared demands; joking, but also not.  
  
Jensen giggles, actually _giggles_ , and then says, “Y’know what, you’re absolutely right. You are. Okay, let me call you right back.”  
  
Jared hangs up the phone and then actually jumps up and down a few times before he gets himself back under control. He isn’t any less happy, though. He’s going to be on Supernatural. With Jensen. For at least a year, and hopefully tons more. Everything is clicking into place.  
  
____  
  
It’s cheesy, and Jared would only ever say this in his own head or to Jensen, but Supernatural is everything Jared hoped it would be and about a zillion other things too. Every new script he gets he loves more than the last one. The show is cool and funny and totally scary. It continues to have that heart that he liked so much about the pilot. Most TV shows are about the plot, about whatever’s happening in an episode, and the characters are just a device to move the story along. In this one, it’s completely about the people. It’s about Sam and Dean, and what they mean to each other and what they’ll do for each other, and everything else is secondary. Jared loves that.  
  
He loves Sam, too. Dean is funnier, and Jared sort of thinks the viewers will like him more, but Jared is happy he gets to be Sam. Sam might not be as flashy or as cool as Dean, but he’s smart and interesting and complicated. And in so many ways, he’s nothing at all like Jared. That makes him fun to play. Jared doesn’t just put on Sam’s clothes and stand on his mark and recite lines as a version of himself like he did with Dean Forrester. With Sam, Jared really has to act. It’s a challenge, and it’s addicting.  
  
Everybody is nice and welcoming and easy to work with and Jared can’t wait to get to the set each day. He’s never loved being alive as much as he does lately. Every day is like a brand new adventure and Jared is always giddy with anticipation to see where it will go.  
  
As much as the show is great, Jensen is about eighty percent of the reason Jared can barely wait to get out of bed in the mornings. Jared’s never had a friend like him before. He’s so many different things and Jared likes them all. He’s unbelievably talented. He brings life to Dean in a way that’s hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time. Dean’s jokes leap off the page when Jensen says them, and watching him get into the right space to play an emotional scene is like watching Michelangelo paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They shot a scene a week ago where the brothers went back to the house their mom died in and Dean had to call John and inform him in tears of where they were, and Jared stood out of everyone’s way and watched Jensen shoot that scene with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Jensen was incredible. Jared didn’t have words even in his own head to describe how impressed he was.  
  
About a month in to working together, they go out to a bar one night and spend the whole time in a dark booth in the back, talking and ignoring the girls that try to hit on them – although mostly Jensen because he’s just annoyingly good-looking. It’s a great night, but as they’re walking home a group of three guys as big as Jared show up out of nowhere and jump them. They grab for Jensen but he gets away, so they crowd around Jared. He’s never been in a real fight before. He knows how to stage-fight, but that probably won’t get him anywhere when the fists are actually connecting. They tackle him, holding him down and punching him hard, and then suddenly the one doing the punching is hauled away and thrown down. Jensen came back for him, and together they incapacitate the drunken idiots enough to get away together. Jared’s never going to forget it for as long as he lives.  
  
Jensen is smart and quick-witted and _funny_ when he’s in the right mood. Jared wasn’t wrong, before, when he thought he noticed Jensen was a little different with him than with everyone else. As the weeks roll by and they all get more used to each other, Jensen does get more comfortable. But even still, when he’s talking to anyone but Jared, it’s like he’s got a bit of a wall around him. He chooses his words carefully and he doesn’t let his guard down. With Jared, he’s completely the opposite. There are still bits of him that Jared feels like he doesn’t know yet, but he’s breaking Jensen’s walls down piece by piece and in almost no time Jensen is entirely relaxed around Jared. They laugh and tease and can and do say anything to each other.  
  
Jared pesters him with questions, wanting to know everything there is to know, and Jensen lets him and answers them all. Within three months, Jared feels like he knows Jensen better than he’s ever known anyone. He likes him more than anyone too. Jared still feels like his thirteen-year-old self sometimes; an eager, dorky kid trailing around after someone older and cooler who Jared still can’t believe actually wants to be friends with him. But Jensen does. He seeks Jared out as much as Jared seeks him out. They spend their breaks sitting together at a picnic table in the sun or playing video games in Jared’s trailer or throwing pocket-knives at a dart board in Jensen’s trailer.  
  
It’s easy and comfortable, being around him. Jared feels like he can just be completely himself, which is a relatively new feeling for him since he moved to Los Angeles. Jensen doesn’t want anything from him; he doesn’t want Jared to _be_ anything other than who he is. It’s freeing and it’s wonderful and Jared hopes this show runs for twenty years and he never has to do anything but come here every day and make magic on screen with his best friend.  
  
____  
  
Jensen winds up and hurls the tennis ball as far as he can out into the huge expanse of grass, and Harley and Sadie tear after it and then fight over it when they reach it at the same time.  
  
“Bring it back!” Jensen calls, but they ignore him and Jensen cracks up. “Or whatever.”  
  
Jared smiles at his dogs, and then at Jensen, and then at no one in particular. He’s just content.  
  
It’s a gorgeous, sunny Saturday and Jared was supposed to be in Los Angeles visiting Sandy today but then she got an audition and had to cancel at the last minute. He could have gone anyway, to see Chad or just to spend some time at his apartment there that he’s paying rent on and barely using, but Jensen was staying in Vancouver so Jared decided to stay too. He feels a little guilty about being almost happy it worked out this way, because that means he’s happy about _not_ seeing Sandy, but then Jensen suggested they take the dogs to the park and Jared forgot all about it.  
  
“It’s nice here,” Jensen says, squinting in the sunshine and looking around.  
  
“This park?”  
  
“This city. I don’t know. I bet it’s shitty here in the winter. I’m not used to the cold, and apparently it just rains and rains and rains. But I like it way better than L.A.”  
  
Jared kind of agrees with him about that. The beaches and the palm trees are nice, but the novelty wore thin pretty quickly once Jared realized the _real_ L.A. is nightclubs and fake tans and cocaine and a hundred other things he isn’t and won’t ever be into. He would rather be here with Jensen than in California any day of the week.  
  
“It reminds me of Texas a little. Not the landscape, but like, the feel to it. People here are just people.”  
  
Harley finally wins the battle for the tennis ball, and he sprints back to them triumphantly and drops it at Jensen’s feet.  
  
“Good boy!” Jensen says, bending over to scratch behind his ears.  
  
Sadie trots back too and goes to Jared, whining and nudging at his shins with her head. Jared chuckles and squats down to give her some love. “Hey, it’s not my fault he beat you. You don’t have to take that. Show him who’s boss, baby.”  
  
Jensen throws the ball again, and they run after it, practically tripping over each other in their race to get there first. Then he pulls off his jacket and plops down on the ground, leaning back on his hands with his legs stretched out in front of him. Jared sits beside him.  
  
“My agent wants to start booking me auditions for things in case we don’t get a second season,” Jensen says quietly, his gaze faraway, focused even beyond the dogs.  
  
Jared frowns. “You don’t think we will?”  
  
“ _I_ do. She’s just doing her job, I guess. Making sure I have a back-up plan, just in case.”  
  
“If something better came along, would you take it?” Jared asks, chewing at his bottom lip in worry.  
  
“We’re under contract, remember? This is all hypothetical. If we get picked up, I’m staying here. If we don’t, I’ll have to take something else. I gotta eat.”  
  
Jared had momentarily forgotten about that. “Okay, but, if we weren’t under contract. Just hypothetically. If you got an opportunity to do something better, would you want to?”  
  
Jensen shakes his head, though. “What better thing? I’m not gonna start booking features with Clooney or something out of nowhere. And even if I did. The show is awesome, Dean is cool as hell, and I get to hang out with you all day every day, so. I doubt anything she could find me would be better than that.”  
  
Jared smiles and bumps Jensen’s shoulder with his own, leaving Jensen to work out that the gesture means Jared agrees with him. “So are you gonna do it? If she finds you an audition?”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “Not sure. I told her I wanted to talk to Kripke first. Don’t wanna step on any toes, make it seem like I’m lookin’ for a way out.”  
  
“What did she say about that?”  
  
“She said it’s just business. Said I shouldn’t care about people’s feelings ‘cause they don’t care about mine.”  
  
“You don’t buy that, right?”  
  
Jensen shakes his head. “Maybe some people. But not the people we work with. Not him.”  
  
“Or me,” Jared adds.  
  
Jensen smiles a little and agrees, “Or you.”  
  
Jared sticks his fingers into his mouth and whistles, and the dogs run back to them and then both collapse on the ground and pant from the heat and from running around. Jensen lies down too, on his back with his hands folded on his chest, and closes his eyes – Jared is the perpetual little brother, always wanting to be like Jensen, so he does the same.  
  
“I’m gonna freckle like crazy if we stay here too long,” Jensen says, and Jared chuckles.  
  
“Cute.”  
  
“Shut up. Makeup would be pissed at me. Badass hunters can’t have freckles.”  
  
Jared laughs again at the absurdity of that statement. “Why? What does skin-tone have to do with badassery?”  
  
“That isn’t a word,” Jensen points out.  
  
“Well it should be. I’m gonna call the dictionary people.”  
  
Jensen snorts. “Please say I can be there when you make that phone call.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“What would the definition be?”  
  
“Badassery,” Jared says holding his hands out of front of his face, miming holding a book. “Adjective. The physical and emotional state of one being completely badass. See ‘Sam Winchester’.”  
  
Jensen laughs. “Dork, see Jared Padalecki.”  
  
“Not as cool as he thinks he is, see Smeckles.”  
  
“Don’t call me that!” Jensen gripes, poking Jared hard in the ribs.  
  
Jared snickers. He drops his arms down to rest at his sides, not realizing Jensen has done the same. The backs of their fingers touch, and Jared’s heart skips a beat or two, but he doesn’t move his hand away because Jensen doesn’t.  
  
“What d’you wanna do today?” Jensen asks quietly, a miniscule tremor in his voice the only sign that he’s aware their hands are touching.  
  
“Whatever,” Jared answers, trying to play it cool. “This. We could order something for dinner later. Watch a movie.”  
  
“Yeah. Sounds good.”  
  
It isn’t the first time Jared’s spent an entire day off with Jensen, and every time he does he starts wishing more and more that he never had to do anything else on the days they aren’t working. Jensen is fun on set but he’s even more fun off it, where he’s relaxed and happy and away from the emotional burden of being in Dean’s skin. They take the dogs to the beach once Jensen decides his face has had enough of lying in the sun, and sit together in the sand while Harley and Sadie play in the salty waves, close enough that their shoulders are touching. It doesn’t feel weird at all, and for a moment Jared finds himself wondering if maybe it should.  
  
Later, they order a disgusting amount of pizza and Buffalo wings and they eat and drink whiskey and laugh and Jared smiles so much his face hurts.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Jared begins when there’s a lull in the conversation, breaking the buzzing but comfortable silence. Jensen frowns a little and Jared quickly adds, “It’s nothing bad, just something I’ve always wanted to know.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“When we hung out at that party that one time, and when we went out for pizza after the table read last winter? There were these moments, where it was like, we were having a good time, and then the conversation turned to acting and the parts we’d had and stuff, and both times you suddenly got kinda … I don’t know. Sad, or something. Like something bad had happened to you.”  
  
“What, like I was casting-couched or something?” Jensen suggests with a humorless laugh.  
  
Jared’s eyes widen and he suddenly feels sick. “I … no, that’s not what I thought at all. God, _were_ you?”  
  
“No. Sorry. Bad joke.”  
  
“Okay.” Jared keeps looking at him to be sure, but he sees honesty in Jensen’s eyes. “So, what was it, then? Why did talking about being an actor make you sad in two separate conversations, years apart from each other?”  
  
Jensen shrugs one shoulder and exhales heavily. He leans forward a little, elbows resting on his knees, and stares into his half-full glass.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jared says softly. He really wants to know, but not if Jensen doesn’t want to talk about it. Because he’s compelled to by forces stronger than his own good sense, he reaches out and wraps his hand around the back of Jensen’s neck, squeezing in a way he hopes is comforting.  
  
Jensen turns his head just slightly so his cheek touches Jared’s wrist. “It isn’t what you’re thinking. It’s not like someone did something bad to me.”  
  
“Alright,” Jared says, because Jensen stops talking for a moment. He rubs his thumb almost unconsciously through the short hair at the nape of Jensen’s neck.  
  
Jensen’s voice is quiet and resentful when he starts again. “I just … I was always the _pretty one_ , you know? The one with the lips and the eyelashes and the stupid girly freckles.”  
  
“I don’t think they’re girly,” Jared says – he loves them, truthfully – but Jensen barrels on like he hadn’t spoken.  
  
“I did all these stupid photo-shoots and stuff, like in these ridiculous poses or with my shirt off or whatever.”  
  
“And somebody made you do them when you didn’t want to?”  
  
“Nobody made me do anything. I was just stupid. I let myself get talked into doing them because I stupidly thought it was … I don’t know. Paying my dues, or something. But it wasn’t.”  
  
Jared doesn’t answer, doesn’t want Jensen to know that he knows the pictures they’re talking about, but Jensen sees through him without even looking at him.  
  
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen them.”  
  
“Some of them,” Jared admits quietly. Curiosity has gotten the better of him once or twice and he’s Googled Jensen. What he found had him halfway between embarrassed on behalf of his friend and transfixed by his lips and his eyelashes and the way the light played off his golden skin. It makes sense, that Jensen was a model before he was an actor. Jared has no problem admitting how attractive Jensen is, even if maybe not out loud.  
  
“And you still wanted to work with me?” Jensen asks incredulously, equal parts angry and sad. “You didn’t think I was a big joke?”  
  
“Of course I didn’t.” Jared tucks one leg up on the couch so he’s facing Jensen and shifts in a little closer to him. Jared has spent the last – he doesn’t even _know_ how many years – being completely in awe of Jensen. Right from the first time they met when Jared was only thirteen, he’s thought Jensen was the coolest, confident, most amazing person. The idea that he secretly has all these insecurities about himself is both impossible to comprehend and heartbreaking.  
  
“I really thought I was good. I did. I thought I was talented. But everyone just kept telling me I was _pretty_.” He spits out the word like it’s poisonous. “And after a while you start to believe them. You start to think, fuck, maybe I’m not any good after all. Maybe I am just nice to look at. Maybe the reason that’s all anybody cares about is ‘cause it’s the only thing I really have to offer.”  
  
“I hate that you ever felt that way. It isn’t true, at all,” Jared tells him honestly. He just now realizes his hand is still on Jensen’s neck, and that’s probably kinda inappropriate so he lets it fall away even though he doesn’t want to. “You are _crazy_ talented. I am constantly blown away by you. I look _up_ to you, because I’m always striving to be as good as you are. We’ve been working together for, what, a couple months now? And man, I can’t even tell you how much _I’ve_ improved just from getting to play a scene off someone like you. You’re so good you make everyone around you better, Jensen. That has nothing to do with what you look like.”  
  
Jensen nods and blinks a few times quickly. “I haven’t really felt that way in a long time. Honestly, I think I was just waiting for a show like this to happen to me for so long, and every time it didn’t I got more and more doubtful that it ever would.”  
  
“But then it did,” Jared points out, the vice in his chest loosening a little when Jensen smiles.  
  
“Yeah. It did.”  
  
“Do you love it as much as I do?” Jared asks, in an almost conspiratorial whisper because he’s a little afraid to admit it. It’s only been a few months and already Jared feels like he doesn’t know who he is anymore without the show. It feels like the piece of himself he never knew was missing.  
  
Jensen nods again. He puts the glass in his hand down on the coffee table unsteadily and then leans back into the couch cushions, tipping his head back on them. “I really, really do. It’s exactly what I was so bitter about not having for all those years. It’s been a long time since I’ve even thought about how I used to feel back then, ‘cause things are _good_ now. Seems like all along I was just waiting for this, for … for you. I love the show. I love _you_.”  
  
Jared hears the words, but for a few blissful moments they don’t really register. Then it hits him, exactly what it is Jensen just said, and he freezes. Jared has used that word when talking to or about Jensen before, but in a casual, friendly way. The way Jensen just said it was different. His heart starts racing, and he stares at Jensen, who groans and covers his face with his hands. “You …” Jared starts, but doesn’t finish because he’s not sure what to say.  
  
“That didn’t come out right,” Jensen says from behind his hands, but his muffled voice shakes and Jared doesn’t believe him.  
  
“What does that mean?” he asks, both exhilarated and terrified about how he thinks Jensen is going to answer.  
  
“Nothing.” Jensen pushes himself up off the couch onto wobbly legs. “Doesn’t mean a damn thing. M’drunk. I should go.”  
  
“Jensen,” Jared protests weakly. He doesn’t know if he wants Jensen to have meant what he said or not. He doesn’t know how he feels about it either way, but the one thing his alcohol-fuzzy brain does know for sure is that he doesn’t want Jensen to go.  
  
He reaches out to grab the first bit of Jensen he can reach to stop him, and gets Jensen’s hand. Jensen tugs only lightly at Jared’s grip once and then stops, but he won’t turn around.  
  
“Please,” he begs quietly, and Jared’s heart just about breaks.  
  
“Talk to me,” he whispers. “Just tell me what you meant. If it was just something that slipped out, something you didn’t mean the way it sounded, then …”  
  
He doesn’t finish the thought because Jensen turns around. His eyes are shiny and glazed – from the alcohol or from tears, Jared doesn’t know – and then he moves so quickly Jared doesn’t have time to react before Jensen is in his lap. Jensen climbs onto him, his knees bracketing Jared’s hips on the couch. His face is just inches away from Jared’s so the tiny space between them is hot and moist and crackling with the electricity of what would happen if one of them moved. Jared’s terrified.  
  
In the end, he doesn’t know who blinks first. It might have been him, it might have been Jensen, but either way suddenly they’re kissing. Soft lips press against his and Jared is frozen in fear and uncertainty for just half a second and then one of them moans and there are tongues and impatience and fingers in Jared’s hair and his fists squeezing handfuls of Jensen’s shirt to get him impossibly closer. Jensen is everywhere; his familiar scent in Jared’s nose, the soft breathy sighs and the smack of their lips in his ears, his weight and warmth pinning Jared to the cushions, his hand trailing down Jared’s chest, fingertips scorching Jared’s skin. Jensen’s tongue slides into Jared’s mouth, lips moving against his in a way that’s more predatory and desperate than sweet, and Jared is light-headed and turned on like _crazy_ , his cock quickly hardening and pressing painfully against the zipper of his jeans.  
  
Jared’s whole body is thrumming, with the booze and with arousal, and he never knew a kiss could be like this – completely consuming in a way that wraps him up and strips him bare at the same time. He pushes his tongue into Jensen’s mouth to taste him, whiskey and buffalo sauce and something subtle and sweet that must just be _Jensen_ , and God, Jared never wants to stop. Jensen scrambles in a little closer and pushes his hips into Jared’s, and he’s hard too, Jared can feel it against his stomach, and that’s when everything shatters. Jared’s brain gets its head back on straight and it hits him, exactly what’s happening right now – that he’s making out with _Jensen_ , that he’s cheating on Sandy, that Jensen is a man and Jared isn’t gay, that they’re supposed to be best friends and co-stars and this is going to Completely. Ruin. Everything.  
  
“Jen,” Jared says weakly, turning his head to the side when Jensen ignores him and tries to keep kissing him.  
  
Jensen pulls back enough to look down at Jared, and time stands still for a few horrifying, heartbreaking seconds as Jared avoids his eyes and _feels_ the moment Jensen understands. “You … oh my God.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared whispers. He really, really is. He feels like the world’s biggest jerk. He should have pushed Jensen away the second their lips touched, shouldn’t have let it get that far just to take it away. “I … I can’t.”  
  
Jensen’s still for another minute, like he’s trying to process the abrupt change. Jared’s cock throbs in his pants, completely unaware of the fact that this would be an enormous mistake and still just wanting what it thought it was going to get, still wanting _Jensen_ , and the whole thing makes him feel sick. He wants Jensen, doesn’t want Jensen, hates himself for wanting Jensen, and hates himself for _not_ wanting Jensen all at the same time. The feeling is making the room spin in a way that isn’t just the whiskey.  
  
Then Jensen gets off him, quietly and slowly, and walks a few steps away with his hands clasped around the back of his neck.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared says again, unable to move from where he’s spread out on the couch, his still-obvious erection and messy hair and kiss-swollen lips leaving him obscenely exposed even though he’s fully clothed.  
  
“Don’t,” Jensen snaps, and then his voice softens when he immediately continues, “I mean … you don’t … it’s not your fault. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m … God, Jared. I thought you … I’m so fucking stupid. I’m sorry, God, I’m so sorry.”  
  
Jared shakes his head even though Jensen can’t see it. “Jensen.”  
  
“I’m gonna … yeah.” Jensen looks around the room, still avoiding looking at Jared. He locates his keys and his jacket, and then he goes to the door and steps into his shoes.  
  
The sight of car keys in his hand finally kicks Jared’s ass into action, and he stands up. “Wait. You can’t drive. Just … stay here, okay? You can sleep on the couch.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head and speaks facing the door. “M’not driving. I’ll come back tomorrow for my car.”  
  
“You can’t walk either,” Jared protests. “It’s the middle of the night and it’ll take you like half an hour to get to your place.”  
  
“I’ll be fine, Jared.” Jensen’s voice is halfway between irritated and appreciative of Jared’s concern.  
  
Jared wants to argue, but he knows there’s no point. And honestly, as much as he doesn’t want Jensen to go, he doesn’t want Jensen to stay either. He’s too scared of what would happen if he did. “Call me when you get there? So I know you haven’t been mugged or something?”  
  
“I will,” Jensen says, not fooling either of them, and then he’s gone.  
  
Jared stands there, swaying slightly and staring at the closed door. When he can’t hear Jensen’s footsteps anymore he collapses back down onto the couch, curls into a ball, and dissolves into tears.  
  
____  
  
Jared wakes up the next morning in a ridiculous amount of pain. His head and the spaces behind his eyes throb from too much whiskey. His neck and back and legs ache from passing out scrunched up on a couch that’s way too small for him for sleep on. And then his chest and heart and _soul_ hurt when the events of the previous evening come rushing back to him, about twenty seconds after Sadie licking his bare foot make Jared pry his eyes open and face the reality of what happened.  
  
He groans, instantly frustrated and miserable, and then groans again involuntarily when the sound erupting from his own throat feels like someone smashing a cymbal over his head.  
  
“Fuck,” Jared mutters, covering his face for a few moments and breathing deeply in an attempt to stop the room from spinning. The worst part is, Jared didn’t even drink that much. Enough to be a little shaky, maybe, but not enough to feel like _this_. There are so many other reasons for Jared feeling this awful, and not a single one of them is good.  
  
Sadie’s wet nose touches Jared’s cheek and she nudges him. Jared blindly reaches out and finds the top of her head to pat. “Hi baby. Sorry, I bet you guys are hungry.”  
  
He manages to squint open one eye and looks at her. Jared swears she looks sad, like she’s worried about him. Someone who’s never owned a dog wouldn’t get it, but Jared just _knows_ they can feel his emotions. He scratches behind her ears and sighs. She whimpers and licks his cheek, and Jared feels even worse. “Yeah. You’re right. Daddy really fucked up.”  
  
She leaves him alone after that. Harley does too. Jared pushes himself off the couch to fill their bowls and let them outside, and they eat but they sort of ignore him while they do it. Jared’s not sure if they’re giving him space or if they’re mad at him. He wouldn’t be surprised by either. Once they come back inside, Jared forces himself to drink three big glasses of water and then gets in the shower, and by the time he’s washed and dressed and brushed his teeth he feels much less like he’s walking the tightrope between dead and alive.  
  
Nothing is fixed, though. What happened still happened and Jared still needs to deal with it, as much as he wishes they could both just pretend they didn’t see each other yesterday. He needs Jensen in his life, needs him like oxygen. This can’t be the thing that breaks them. Jared won’t let it. Even when everything has gone wrong, Jared still feels this _pull_ to Jensen. It’s like gravity, like magnets. He has no control over it. He can’t stay away from Jensen even when maybe he should.  
  
He drives to Jensen’s apartment building without calling first because he doesn’t want to give Jensen the chance to say _don’t come over_ , and Jensen’s voice on the intercom is scratchy and sounds half-asleep, but he lets Jared up without a fight. He answers the door in sweats and a t-shirt, his hair messy and his face abnormally blotchy, and he looks about as sick and upset as Jared feels. He greets Jared with a grunt and lets him in, but cuts off Jared’s instant attempt to talk about the night before with a grumble about _coffee first_. Jared sits uncomfortably at the small table in Jensen’s kitchen, the chair way too small for his big frame, while Jensen spoons ground beans into a filter and pours water into the coffee maker and won’t look at him.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared says again, after way too many minutes of slowly-ticking silence. He can’t think of what else to say. Mostly he just wishes Jensen would turn around. Not being able to see Jensen’s face, to gauge what’s going through his mind, is leaving Jared scattered and scared that everything is ruined. Jensen’s shoulders are tense and the muscles in his back look tight through the thin t-shirt. They’re also really nice. Jared’s never noticed that before.  
  
Jensen sighs and braces his hands on the countertop, dropping his head forward a little. Jared very resolutely doesn’t look at his ass in the loose sweatpants. He does wonder if Jensen is wearing underwear. That one slips past his reserve. “Like I said. You got nothin’ to be sorry for.”  
  
Jared nods. He doesn’t really believe it, but he doesn’t feel like arguing. This is awkward enough already. “Do you … um. Look, I don’t wanna make this into a big deal if it isn’t. But if you’ve got, you know …”  
  
“Feelings for you?” Jensen supplies, sounding angry about it.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared answers quietly. “I mean, that’s probably not something we should just ignore. So … do you?”  
  
“I …” Jensen finally turns around and leans against the counter, facing Jared, but he crosses his arms protectively over his chest and still won’t look at him. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Are you gay?”  
  
Jensen flinches a little at the word, but then softly admits, “I don’t know that either. Maybe. What if I was?”  
  
“Nothing,” Jared says honestly. “You’re my best friend, man. The best friend I’ve ever had. You can be into girls, or guys, or both, or freakin’ sock puppets. Whatever the hell you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”  
  
Jensen smiles just a little, but it fades away quickly. “Yeah. Definitely not sock puppets. Other than that, I … I’m not sure, I guess. Not right now, anyway. I’ll let you know when I am, okay?”  
  
Jared nods. He folds his hands on the table and looks down at them so Jensen doesn’t feel like he’s being watched.  
  
“What about you?”  
  
He should have been expecting that question, but Jared still isn’t ready for it. “I’m with Sandy,” he offers as an answer.  
  
It’s a cop-out because it isn’t a real answer to Jensen’s question, but it’s also the truth. The problem is, deep down, Jared knows he liked it. When Jensen was on top of him, in his arms, kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. But if he says it out loud, then it’ll be real. He isn’t anywhere near prepared for what that means.  
  
“Okay.” The coffee maker splutters as it finishes, and Jensen pours them both a cup and joins Jared at the table. “Well, listen, I … I know that. It was shitty of me to put you in that position when I knew you … I feel like a jerk. I’m really sorry, Jared.”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “What happened was … whatever it was. Everyone has done something dumb when they’re drunk that they wish they could forget the next day. I just, I’d hate the idea that we couldn’t be friends anymore because of it.”  
  
For the first time since he’s been here, Jensen actually looks at him. He looks tired and sad and lost, but he manages a small smile. “Yeah. Me too.”  
  
“So we’re okay?” Jared asks uncertainly. He knows in reality they aren’t anything even remotely close to okay, but he’s more than willing to pretend if Jensen is. Jared wants more than anything to rewind the clock about fifteen hours, but since he can’t do that, faking it is the next best thing.  
  
“Yeah. We’re good.”  
  
“‘Kay. Good. I, uh, I can’t stay, I gotta …” Jared doesn’t bother finishing the sentence. There isn’t anywhere he actually needs to be; he just doesn’t want to be here anymore, but coming up with a lie seems like more work than it’s worth since Jensen won’t believe him anyway.  
  
Jensen nods slowly. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”  
  
“Yeah. For sure.” Jared claps him awkwardly on the shoulder and then all but runs away with his tail between his legs. He feels like an asshole and a coward and the worst friend ever, but none of it stops him from high-tailing it back to his own apartment.  
  
He needs to talk to Sandy. That will fix this. Hearing her voice, telling her he loves her; that will make the world stop rotating too quickly and bring Jared back to himself. He’s sure of it. He dials her number as he’s walking through the door and struggles to get his shoes off one-handed while he listens to it ring.  
  
“Hi Honey!” Sandy answers enthusiastically.  
  
“Hey,” Jared says, trying really hard not to sound as freaked out as he is. It doesn’t work. “How was the audition?”  
  
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice full of concern.  
  
Jared sighs and goes into the living room. The sight of the still-rumpled couch brings everything back again, fresh and raw and painful, so Jared sits in the chair. “I have to tell you something.”  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s nothing like that. And it’s not a big deal, at least I hope it isn’t.” Jared shifts in his seat and squirms on the inside. “I just don’t wanna keep things from you.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“I … um. Jensen kinda kissed me.” There’s silence on the other end of the line and Jared panics. “It didn’t mean anything. You gotta believe me. We were drunk, and I guess he lost track of himself or whatever, but it wasn’t anything serious. I promise it wasn’t.”  
  
“Did you kiss back?” she asks, and Jared answers, “No,” automatically even though it’s a complete lie. He didn’t _mean_ to kiss back. He wasn’t _supposed_ to kiss back. So maybe if he can convince her it’s the truth, he can convince himself too. Eventually.  
  
“Alright. I believe you,” Sandy says quietly.  
  
“You do?”  
  
“Yeah, of course I do. I know you don’t lie to me.”  
  
“God,” Jared breathes, relief washing over him. He’d been half expecting her to dump him on the spot. “I was so worried you were gonna be pissed.”  
  
“I’m not _happy_. But I guess these things happen. It sucks being so far away from you all the time.”  
  
“I know. I hate it.” The pit in his stomach just grows, because Jared doesn’t mean that. He wishes he meant it, but if he’s honest with himself, he realizes that other than when they’re literally together or talking on the phone, he’s barely thought about her since he moved up here. She isn’t ever on his mind when he’s with anyone else.  
  
“Where is he?”  
  
Jared’s confused. “Jensen? I don’t know, probably at his apartment.”  
  
“What did he say when you talked about it?”  
  
“I … we’re okay. It was a mistake. We’re gonna just pretend it didn’t happen.”  
  
Jared doesn’t believe even one of the words coming out of his own mouth right now. This whole conversation has just been one giant lie, and he feels lower than dirt about it. But he will believe it. He’ll make himself believe it. He has to. Meeting Jensen is the best thing that’s ever happened to Jared; he’s not losing him over this.  
  
“Are you sure? You guys still have to work together, isn’t that gonna be awkward?”  
  
“We’ve all done something stupid when we’re drunk, right?” Jared reasons, repeating what he said to Jensen. “It’s already behind us.”  
  
“Huh. Okay, well, I guess that’s good then.”  
  
“Yeah. Anyway, like I said, I just wanted you to know.”  
  
“Well, thanks.”  
  
“So, how _was_ the audition?”  
  
“Good, I think. It’s hard to tell, you know? But I think it was good. I’m sorry I had to cancel our plans.”  
  
Jared shrugs. “It’s fine. Wasn’t really in your control.”  
  
“When am I gonna see you?”  
  
Jared’s eyes catch sight of a framed picture of him and Jensen on the wall while she’s talking, and then he forgets to answer for a moment because a really scary thought just hit him – he has about ten framed photographs on that wall, and eight of them contain Jensen. “What? Sorry, uh, not for a few weeks, probably. Sorry. Filming’s hectic right now.”  
  
“I know. I just miss you.”  
  
“Me too.” In truth, Jared wishes he’d never picked up the phone. He thought telling Sandy about what happened last night would make him feel better, but saying it all out loud just makes it feel way too real. He loves her so much, but after last night … he’s never been more confused. Hearing her voice was supposed to ground him, not leave him spinning even faster than before. “Look, San, I’m sorry, but I gotta go.”  
  
“Oh. Uh, alright. Well …”  
  
“I’ll call tomorrow,” Jared promises. He’s already almost positive he won’t.  
  
“Sure. Talk to you then,” she answers. It’s clear she doesn’t believe him either.  
  
____  
  
It does get better.  
  
The first few days are tense and uncomfortable and Jared can barely look at Jensen without wanting to both kiss him and sprint away in the opposite direction. They don’t see each other outside of filming, and their interaction between takes is strained and forced and Jared knows everyone can tell. He’s so furious with _both_ of them because if one stupid kiss ruins everything they’ve built here Jared is going to regret it for the rest of his life. He eats lunch alone in his trailer and Jensen does the same, and Jared misses him like crazy but everything left unspoken between them makes it impossible for things to be like they were.  
  
But then, after less than a week, Jensen knocks on the door of Jared’s trailer during their lunch break. Jared lets him in and shuts the door behind him, and then Jensen takes a deep breath, looks Jared right in the eyes, and says, “I’m sorry I’ve been weird.”  
  
Jared looks at him for a moment, looks at the slight grimace on Jensen’s face, and hates that it’s party his fault Jensen feels the way he does right now. Jensen was embarrassed; _Jared_ should have been the one to make the extra effort in getting things back to normal between them, and he didn’t. He could just punch himself.  
  
“Don’t even, man. I’m sorry _I’ve_ been weird,” Jared parrots back to him, and Jensen smiles just a little.  
  
“I hate this.”  
  
“I know. God, me too.” Jared sighs and pushes the hair back off his face.  
  
Jensen watches him, chewing on his bottom lip for a second. “Can we maybe just go back to being best friends now?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jared sighs again, this time in relief, and then laughs. “I’d really, really like that.”  
  
Jensen nods. “‘Kay. Good. Me too.”  
  
Jared steps into Jensen and hugs him, because he can’t help it, and Jensen hugs him back tightly.  
  
“M’really sorry,” Jensen says softly.  
  
“I am too,” Jared tells him, “so let’s forget it.”  
  
After that, it’s like they’ve both slipped back into their default settings and are joking and teasing and loving each other’s company again. After two weeks, Jensen’s gone back to spending all their breaks in Jared’s trailer and a good chunk of their free time at Jared’s apartment. He always says he’s there to see the dogs and not Jared, but Jared doesn’t believe him and he couldn’t be happier about it. After three weeks, Jensen takes Jared to a Thai restaurant on the waterfront he’s been talking about forever, and everyone else in there seems to be on a date and the waiter totally thinks they are too and Jared doesn’t even mind. He and Jensen know it isn’t a date, but if it was, Jared would be proud for people to know he was with someone like Jensen. He feels completely at ease with Jensen again, regardless of what they’re doing or what anyone else thinks of them.  
  
People _do_ think things about them, too. Jared doesn’t spend a lot of time Googling his own name because he doesn’t have that big an ego, but he gets curious every now and again and the small amount of time he does spend looking things up about them and the show tells him there are a _lot_ of fans who are convinced he and Jensen are sleeping together. And the pictures of them on red carpets, the examples people offer up as proof, do unfortunately paint a fairly convincing story. Jared doesn’t care, though. People can think what they want. He knows what he has with Jensen and he loves what he has with Jensen, and a couple teenage girls imagining them having sex doesn’t change anything. Jared would be lying if he said it didn’t put ideas in his head, if only for a minute, but they’re just momentary flights of ridiculous fantasy. Jared isn’t gay. And even if he was, the show and his friendship with Jensen are both way too important. Jared wouldn’t want to jeopardize what they have, so he puts the thoughts out of his mind.  
  
____  
  
Jared and Jensen get two days off in the middle of the week because the crew is filming a couple scenes back to back that don’t have Sam and Dean in them. Secretly Jared thinks Eric organized it that way on purpose so they could get time off, because he also suggests they use the time to drive up the coast to a picturesque mountain town called Squamish. _To get to know each other better_ , he said, which is ridiculous and non-sense-making because they know each other pretty damn well. Jared feels like they’re being set up on a blind date.  
  
Neither of them have anything better to do, though, so they take his advice, renting a jeep and hitting the road. They sing along to the oldies rock music Jensen likes on the way and Jared discovers that Jensen has a really nice voice. Jensen tells him a long story about a completely disastrous camping trip his family took when he was ten, and has Jared laughing so hard his sides hurt. Then Jared talks seriously about how worried he is they won’t get picked up for another season – not because he thinks the show isn’t good, but because he really doesn’t know anymore how he was ever happy without it – and Jensen listens and makes Jared feel a little better by promising him that no matter what happens they’ll always be best friends.  
  
“We’ve peed in the woods together, right?” Jensen reasons, referring to the first day on location in the forest to film _Wendigo_ when the port-a-potties didn’t get delivered on time. “That bonds you for life.”  
  
Jared chuckles. “Kinda like a blood oath, but with piss?”  
  
“Exactly. There’s no going back now. You’re stuck with me forever whether you like it or not.”  
  
Jared shrugs and laughs again. “Luckily I like it.”  
  
Squamish is exactly as gorgeous as Eric said; quaint and peaceful and set against a beautiful backdrop of the snow-capped mountains and endless blue sky. They spend the day wandering around the town and seeing Shannon Falls and just enjoying being together. Jared is always relaxed around Jensen in a way he isn’t with anyone else, and he knows Jensen is too. Something just flips a switch between them, something that allows them to both let their guards down – not that Jared has _that_ much of a guard in the first place, but Jensen does – and be comfortable with each other and with exactly who they are. With the trees and the fresh mountain air, everything but Jensen sort of fades away for a while. Jared finds himself struck with the urge to buy a cabin up here and say screw-it to being an actor; to move here with Jensen and spend the rest of their lives in rocking chairs on a porch talking for hours about absolutely nothing. He doesn’t say that out loud, because if he did, he’s almost positive Jensen would agree in a second. The idea that they’d both throw it all away for each other is thrilling, and scary, and amazing.  
  
Maybe one day he will buy a cabin here. And maybe Jensen will vacation in it with him. Jared really likes the thought.

____

Jared makes the trip to Los Angeles the weekend before they start filming the second-last episode of the season. The last two episodes are going to be grueling, and Eric insisted both Jared and Jensen get out of the city before they delve into them, to clear their heads. He didn’t care where they went, he said, just that they couldn’t stay in Vancouver. Jared listened, because he has a girlfriend in California that he’s been more-or-less ignoring for nearly nine months, other than the handful of times she’s come up to Canada to visit him. Jensen _didn’t_ listen because Jensen doesn’t tend to listen to anybody, except maybe Jared, and even then it’s only sometimes. Jared likes that about him.  
  
He spent the whole previous day with Sandy and isn’t thrilled to admit that he was _bored_. Then they went out for a nice dinner and had nothing to say to each other, and then spent the rest of the evening wrapped around each other between the sheets like they haven’t in months and Jared didn’t love that either. It was sex, so there was nothing _wrong_ with it. But with how much they’ve had to be apart this year, Jared feels like they should be dying to fall into bed together every minute they can. He feels like they should be ravenous for each other; itching to touch and taste and eat each other alive. And they’re not. Or, at least, Jared isn’t. It’s like the spark is gone between them. Like all the time apart has snuffed out the flame that used to be there.  
  
Jared checks his phone for the hundredth time, wishing Jensen would just text him back already. He must’ve gotten busy with something else. Jared’s impatient. He never has much willpower when it comes to Jensen. Eventually the little black device buzzes and Jared smiles automatically.  
  
 _Cleaning. sooooooo much fun. Be jealous, J. Be very jealous._  
  
 _Cleaning wat?_ Jared texts back.  
  
Jensen answers right away this time. _Like the floors & stuff. Bathroom. etc. Im fkn famous, shouldnt I have ppl for this? :P_  
  
Jared smiles even more, because the truth is Jensen would hate himself if he turned into the kind of celebrity who has a staff of people to do things like that for him. Jensen hates things like cleaning toilets but he prides himself on doing it anyway. It’s one of the things Jared likes best about him, and that isn’t a short list.  
  
“Jared,” Sandy says, and Jared looks up at her. She’s frowning at him.  
  
“What?”  
  
She gestures at his hands and raises her eyebrows. “Seriously? What? We’re on a date, and you’ve spent the whole time texting Jensen. You’ve barely said a word to me.”  
  
“I … shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t really realize I was doing that.” Jared realizes it sounds like an excuse, but it’s the truth. Sometimes when he’s talking to Jensen, Jared forgets everything else. And truthfully, he didn’t really realize they were on a date either. They’re having breakfast at a diner down the street from their apartment; Jared doesn’t really think every minute they spend together needs to be classified as a _date_.  
  
“You didn’t realize?” she repeats incredulously, raising her eyebrows. “How could you not realize? How do you text someone without knowing you’re doing it?”  
  
“No, I realized I was texting. I just didn’t realize I was ignoring you.”  
  
Sandy just looks at him, looks _through_ him, for nearly a full minute. Jared wants to ask what she’s looking at, but the expression on her face stops him because she looks like she’s just figuring something out.  
  
“Sandy?” Jared asks eventually, entirely unnerved by the way she’s staring at him.  
  
“You have feelings for him, don’t you?” she half-asks. It isn’t really a question.  
  
Jared frowns. “Feelings for who?”  
  
“Don’t do that, you know who. I haven’t seen you in forever, and this was supposed to be our weekend and you’re spending it with your nose buried in your phone, having a conversation with the guy you see all the time!”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “No. Look, I’m sorry, okay? We just spend so much time together, it feels weird to not be talking to him all the time, that’s all.”  
  
“Do you even realize how that sounds? Repeat those words in your own head and tell me you don’t have feelings for him.”  
  
“I don’t,” Jared insists. He reaches forward and takes her hand. “Hey, I promise. He’s my best friend, but that’s it.”  
  
“He kissed you,” Sandy points out.  
  
“And I told you I didn’t kiss back.”  
  
“Well he clearly has feelings for you! And you’re always together, and when you’re not together he’s all you talk about! What am I supposed to think?”  
  
“I swear we’re just friends. I wouldn’t do that to you. And I’m not even gay!”  
  
She stares at him again, mouthing wordlessly for a moment and shaking her head. “Jared, if you are not in love with me anymore then that’s okay. That happens. But you have to be honest with me about it. And you have to be honest with yourself.”  
  
“I am,” Jared promises. He squeezes her hand, and then brings it up to his lips and kisses it. “I love you. I’m sorry I was ignoring you, that wasn’t cool. You have one hundred percent of my attention for the rest of the day, alright?”  
  
Jared keeps his promise. He turns his phone right off and sticks it in his back pocket, and more than a few times he’s itching to pull it out and check it but he doesn’t. He devotes his entire self for the next few hours to Sandy, listening to her and laughing with her and telling her the stories of funny things that have happened on set that don’t center around Jensen. It isn’t easy to come up with more than one or two, so eventually Jared resorts to telling her stories that _do_ center around Jensen but just replacing Jensen’s name with someone else’s. It’s more than flirting with the line of lying to her and Jared hates that, but the problem is it isn’t that easy for him to carry on a conversation with anybody these days without Jensen coming up. It has nothing to do with having feelings for him; it’s just that they spend more time with each other than with anyone else so by default most of Jared’s stories involve him.  
  
They have a nice afternoon regardless of how many times Jared catches his mind wandering away from Sandy and has to forcibly shove himself back into the moment. Then she goes with him to the airport, her hand small and delicate in Jared’s while they walk to his gate. He wraps her tiny body up in his arms and kisses her breathless when they have to say goodbye even though people stare and Jared thinks he sees the flashes from more than one camera through his closed eyes. She smiles at him when he lets her go and wishes him a safe flight. But once he’s in the line to go through security and he turns around to wave to her one more time before he won’t be able to see her anymore, she’s watching him with her lips pressed together and a devastated look in her dark brown eyes. Jared wasn’t expecting that and he has no idea how to take it.  
  
There is some light turbulence and a person a few rows behind Jared gets sick into one of those little bags they put in the seat pockets. Other then that, nothing extraordinary happens while he’s in the air between Los Angeles and Vancouver. The old man beside him sleeps, and Jared stares out the window into the endless sea of fluffy white clouds and thinks.  
  
He thinks about the fact that he should have been over the moon to get to spend almost two full days with his girlfriend and instead he couldn’t wait to leave. He thinks about the way it felt earlier, when he kissed Sandy. And he thinks about how if felt a few months ago when Jensen kissed him. He thinks about all the time they spend together, how much Jared loves every second of it. How he barely stops smiling whenever Jensen is around. How addicted he is to making Jensen laugh and how much he likes the way Jensen’s eyes crinkle when he does. That he’s felt from their first day of shooting the pilot episode that there isn’t anything he couldn’t tell Jensen – that he wants Jensen to feel the same, wants to know everything there is to know about him. That when they’re not together Jared finds himself constantly wishing they were and counting the seconds until they are.  
  
And the biggest red flag of all – that Jared has a girlfriend who he claims to love, and yet, if someone put a gun to his head and asked him who the most important person in his life is? Jared would have to say Jensen. He’s not sure why he’s never thought about it in terms that definite before, but now it all but smacks him in the face.  
  
It’s barely a three hour flight. It’s nothing compared to the enormous amount of time Jared’s had to think about this over the last year. It’s a realization that should have come to him a long time ago, but didn’t. By the time they touch down in Vancouver, the light bulb has finally switched on. Jared is in love with Jensen. It doesn’t matter that Jensen’s a man, that he’s Jared’s best friend, Jared’s co-star. Jared loves him. He’s been trying for so long to convince himself he doesn’t, but it didn’t work. The thought is completely terrifying, but at the same time it makes more sense than anything ever has. When he’s honest with himself about it, the truth is Jared feels like more of a couple with Jensen than he ever has with anyone he’s actually _been_ a couple with. And the other truth is, when Jensen kissed him? Jared told Sandy he didn’t like it, he told _himself_ he didn’t like it, but none of that was true.  
  
While the plane is taxiing to the gate, Jared mouths the words _I love Jensen_ to himself, just to make sure they feel real. They do. And it makes him smile.  
  
He calls Sandy the minute he can find a quiet spot in the bustling airport. It’s shitty to do this over the phone, but Jared knows his feelings for Jensen mean he’s been more-or-less stringing her along for the better part of a year and that’s not fair. He should have done this a long time ago. He’s wasted enough of her time.  
  
“You were right,” he tells her when she answers, not bothering with _hello_.  
  
She pauses. “About what?”  
  
“Jensen.” Jared’s heart races. He’s nervous and he feels horrible for both staying with her for so long and ending their relationship with a phone call. At the same time he’s excited, and scared, and too many other muddled-up emotions to name. It makes him dizzy so he leans against the wall to steady himself. “Me and Jensen, I mean. I do have feelings for him. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t _want_ to, but I do. I’m so sorry.”  
  
There’s a longer pause this time, and then her voice is small and sad but she simply says, “I know.”  
  
Jared swallows and closes his eyes for a moment. He knows this is the right thing do to, but loving Jensen doesn’t make him love Sandy any less, and it breaks his heart a little to know he’s losing her. He slides down the wall to sit on the floor, ignoring the looks he’s attracting from passers-by. “You’ve known for a long time, haven’t you?”  
  
“I suspected,” she says softly. “I kept hoping I was wrong, but … I mean, the way you are with him. The way you talk about him when he’s not around. It’s obvious he’s been the North on your compass for a while now.”  
  
“I never wanted to hurt you,” Jared tells her, and he means it so much it almost makes him cry.  
  
“I know you didn’t. Jared, it’s … I’m sad, because I’ll miss you. But we all love people who don’t end up being _the one_. It’s no one’s fault.”  
  
Jared nods. “I’m still sorry.”  
  
“Me too.” She’s silent for a moment, and then she asks, “Did you sleep with him?”  
  
“No. That’s the truth, I didn’t. The night we – the night he kissed me. I told you I didn’t kiss back and that wasn’t completely true. But that’s as far as it ever went. I wouldn’t cheat on you.”  
  
“Yeah.” She sighs, sending static along the line. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re not that guy.”  
  
“I feel like crap about this anyway. You don’t deserve it.”  
  
“Are you going to tell him?”  
  
It’s a question Jared hadn’t even considered. In his head, up until right this second, it was like realizing he loves Jensen was the end of the road – the final step on this journey. It occurs to him now that she’s right. Just knowing how he feels is _far_ from the last item on the to-do list.  
  
“Jared?”  
  
“I have to tell him,” Jared breathes, his heart pounding uncomfortably again. The thought is terrifying.  
  
“Did you just realize that?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Oh Jared.” Sandy laughs quietly.  
  
“How do I do that?” Jared asks, running a hand through his hair.  
  
Sandy’s jokingly unamused voice just deadpans, “Really?” and then it’s Jared’s turn to laugh.  
  
“Right. I guess you’re not the person to talk about this with.”  
  
Sandy giggles. “Probably not. But what the hell. Look, just tell him, okay? You don’t have to do it any special way. He already feels the same way about you.”  
  
“You think so?” Jared asks hopefully.  
  
“Are you kidding? Of course he does. Jared, most women would kill to have someone look at them just _once_ the way Jensen looks at you all the time. The few times I hung out with you guys together? It was like he couldn’t _stop_ looking at you. You can’t tell me you never noticed.”  
  
“I …” Jared thinks about it, and she’s right about that too. “I don’t know, I guess I just thought we were friends.”  
  
“You’re that too. But trust me. He’s nuts about you.”  
  
“Can you and me still be friends?” Jared will understand if she says no, but he hopes she won’t.  
  
“Eventually,” Sandy answers after a moment. “When’s the next time you’re in L.A.?”  
  
“Probably not for a while. Maybe a few weeks?”  
  
“Give me a call then.”  
  
Jared nods. “Yeah. I will. And I’m sorry, again. For everything.”  
  
“Take care of yourself.”  
  
“You too.”  
  
“Oh, and Jared?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Go get him.”  
  
____  
  
It takes about an hour to get to Jensen’s apartment, between waiting for his bags and waiting for the car the studio always sends and driving through rush-hour traffic. Jared is on edge the whole time, his heart beating too fast and his skin buzzing and his mind racing. He wants Jensen, he knows that now. Wants him as more that just his best friend. He wants to kiss him until they can’t breathe and wake up with him in the mornings and do a hundred other things with him that he hasn’t even thought of yet.  
  
“Hey, it’s me,” Jared says through the intercom when Jensen answers.  
  
“Oh. Hey.” Jensen sounds surprised, but pleasantly. “C’mon up.”  
  
Jared practically sprints up the two flights of stairs, and then stands outside Jensen’s door for a minute trying to convince himself to knock with his heart beating into his throat. He wants to go in there and tell Jensen exactly how he feels about him, but he’s scared, too, because there’s always the chance he waited too long. That Jensen moved on, that Jensen won’t want him anymore. He’s scared of what it’s going to mean if Jensen _does_ still want him. If or how they’ll tell people, whether they’ll spend one night together and then realize it was a mistake and completely ruin their friendship _and_ the ability to work together. So many things are riding on this decision, but all Jared knows for sure is how he feels, what his heart wants. And his heart wants Jensen.  
  
Jared finally works up the nerve to knock on the door, and Jensen opens it immediately and greets Jared with a blinding, kilowatt smile. It occurs to Jared that he’s never seen Jensen direct that smile at anyone else. “Miss me too much to wait until tomorrow?”  
  
Jared smiles nervously. “Yeah.”  
  
Jensen laughs and steps back to let Jared in, then shuts the door behind him. “How was the weekend?”  
  
Jared looks at him, at those bright green eyes he spends most of his day staring into, the ones he’s never quite managed to forget all the times they’ve been apart, and everything just clicks right into place. He isn’t scared anymore. He doesn’t need to be. Jensen’s here, and that means everything is going to be okay.  
  
“I love you,” Jared says bluntly.  
  
Jensen blinks. His face is blank for a moment, eyes maybe a little wider than usual, like he’s attempting to process the new information and it won’t compute. “You … I’m sorry?”  
  
“I love you,” Jared repeats. The words fill him up with an unexpected sense of freedom, like it’s something he’s been unconsciously holding inside for years. Hell, maybe it is. “I know it’s probably not cool to just say it like that. But it’s the truth. I think I’ve been in love with you for years, even, I just didn’t know it. But now I do.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head a little, staring at Jared like wires in his brain are misfiring. He doesn’t speak for a minute, and Jared worries just a bit that Sandy was wrong, that Jensen doesn’t feel the same way. That their kiss all those months ago really _was_ just a drunken mistake. But then Jensen frowns and says, “If you’re messing with me right now …”  
  
“I’m not. I swear I’m not.” Jared steps forward and holds his hands up in surrender. Jensen doesn’t back away. “I didn’t know how to handle this at first, when you kissed me. You’re a guy, and I’ve never … you know? What I felt didn’t make sense, it freaked me out, so I pretended I didn’t feel anything. It took me a while to figure it out, but I know now.”  
  
“I don’t …” Jensen’s gaze falls down to a spot on Jared’s chest as his lips move soundlessly; struggling to find words or maybe to make sense of what’s happening. “Really?”  
  
“Really. I’ve spent my whole life looking for you, Jensen. And I kept finding you and then being stupid and letting you go. When I always used to think about how I wanted something amazing … the show _is_ amazing, but it’s the cherry-on-top, you know? I never realized it but _you_ are what I was waiting for.”  
  
“What about Sandy?”  
  
“We broke up.”  
  
“What? When?”  
  
“Uh … like an hour ago, I guess?”  
  
Jensen’s eyes snap back up to Jared’s. “What? What happened?”  
  
“She, uh,” Jared chuckles and scratches the back of his neck. “She knew. How I felt about you. She knew way before I did. I guess I never hid it very well.”  
  
Jensen nods. He rubs a hand over his mouth and he won’t look at Jared again.  
  
“I … are you okay?” Jared asks, frowning. “Should I not have said anything?”  
  
“No, you – no,” Jensen says quickly. “I just …”  
  
He looks lost and confused and like he doesn’t quite know how to process what’s going on, and Jared’s heart aches for him. He hates that it’s his fault. So he does the only thing his brain can think of on short notice – he steps into Jensen, grabs his waist, and kisses him. Jensen is still against him for just a moment, and then he just melts into it, leaning into Jared and sliding his arms around Jared’s neck and kissing him back. His lips move against Jared’s in slow, delicious slides, and every one of Jared’s nerve endings lights up. It’s electric like the first time but instead of dangerous it’s warm and passionate and needy. A kiss has never meant so many things before. It almost freaks Jared out again, how _important_ this feels, but then Jensen makes this tiny, happy noise in the back of his throat and Jared forgets everything else.  
  
Jensen lets their lips fall apart eventually to gasp for air, and then he looks up at Jared, blinking slowly, his eyes dark and wide. “This is really happening.”  
  
Jared smiles a little. “Yeah.”  
  
“I …”  
  
“What?” Jared asks gently, slipping his hand under the hem of Jensen’s shirt and splaying his hand on the small of Jensen’s back. His skin is warm and soft and Jared wants to touch every inch of it.  
  
Jensen shakes his head a little. “Never thought it would. I’d kinda resigned myself to the fact that you didn’t want me.”  
  
“M’sorry.” Jared kisses the corner of his mouth. “I always wanted you. I was just dumb, I didn’t realize it.”  
  
“What changed?” Jensen asks. He reaches up and brushes the bangs out of Jared’s eyes, and Jared turns into his hand and kisses the heel of his palm.  
  
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. Guess I just got to the point where I thought … I can either keep pretending to be straight, ‘cause I think it’s what I’m supposed to do, or I can be honest with myself and have you.”  
  
Jensen nods, and then he grins a little and jokes, “You sound pretty sure I was gonna be into it.”  
  
Jared smiles too. “I was hoping you would.”  
  
“What about the show?” Jensen asks, expression slipping back into worried for a moment. “This would change everything.”  
  
“We’ll figure it out. Whatever we have to do. It’ll be worth it, if it means I can have you.”  
  
Jensen kisses him again, cupping Jared’s face in his hands to angle his head to the side and deepen it. His tongue brushes along Jared’s bottom lip and then it’s gone; the quick, playful tease a promise of things to come and Jared suddenly can’t feel his legs.  
  
“Any chance there’s a bed somewhere in this place?” he asks, even though he knows – he’s slept in it before.  
  
“You move that quick, Padalecki?”  
  
Jared shrugs and smiles. “I’ve had a crush on you for almost ten years. Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”  
  
Jensen doesn’t answer but seems to agree. He takes Jared’s hand and pulls him toward the bedroom, shutting the door behind them and then pulling Jared into his arms again and kissing him so hard Jared can’t breathe. Then he pushes Jared gently down onto his unmade bed and follows him. Jared scoots up to rest his head on the pillow and Jensen lies beside him, propped up on one elbow and pressed along the line of Jared’s body.  
  
“You’ve never done anything before, right?”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “Not with a guy. You?”  
  
“I … some things,” Jensen says with a small shrug. He looks down at his hand where it’s resting on Jared’s chest and then doesn’t continue for a moment. “Not everything. It’s hard to find someone you trust that much, y’know? Someone who you knew for sure wouldn’t say anything. I still wasn’t totally sure a guy was what I wanted, and I wasn’t sure a guy was what I _wanted_ to want. If that makes any sense.”  
  
“Yeah, it does.” Jared knows exactly how that feels. He slides his fingers through Jensen’s, linking them together and squeezing his hand. “So, you’re sure now?”  
  
Jensen looks up at him, nerves and want all mixed up in his darkened green eyes. “Sure about … no, I’m not. But sure about you? Yeah. Completely.”  
  
“I won’t tell anyone.”  
  
Jensen’s face falls into a frown. He lets go of Jared’s hand in favor of reaching up and brushing his fingers over Jared’s cheek. “I wouldn’t care if you did. That’s not what I meant. Ever since I met you? All I’ve wanted to do is be around you as much as I possibly could. To take care of you. To make you laugh, make you … happy. When I’m with you? I feel like … I know who I am.”  
  
Jared smiles and turns his face into Jensen’s palm. “When I’m with you, I feel like I’m better than who I am.”  
  
Jensen leans down and kisses him softly, saying more with his lips than Jared ever could in words. “Love you,” he murmurs against Jared’s mouth.  
  
“Me too.” Jared slides his fingers through Jensen’s short hair, kissing the corner of Jensen’s mouth and then guiding his head back just a little so he can see Jensen’s eyes again. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m so sorry you had to feel like you were in this alone.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head. He drags the pad of his thumb over Jared’s bottom lip, over the moisture lingering there from the kiss. “I still shouldn’t have kissed you like that. It wasn’t fair.”  
  
“It threw me a little,” Jared admits, and then chuckles when Jensen raises an eyebrow. “Okay, a lot. But I’m still glad you did. Who knows how much longer it would’ve taken me to pull my head outta my ass if you hadn’t.”  
  
Jensen smiles and kisses him again, deeper this time, his tongue swiping along Jared’s lower lip and then sliding into Jared’s mouth. It’s slow and intense and dizzying and Jared’s head spins a little. He reaches for Jensen, wrapping his arms around Jensen’s back and pulling him in a little closer. Jensen rolls half on top of him, one leg falling in between Jared’s and the top of his thigh pressing into Jared’s quickly filling erection. Jared moans and tilts his hips up into the pressure, and Jensen takes the hint and pushes his leg down, moving it just slightly so the hard muscle grinds against Jared’s cock.  
  
“Damn,” Jared breathes. It’s ridiculous how good that feels, and Jensen’s hardly doing anything.  
  
Jensen’s lips fall away from Jared’s and he starts pressing kisses along Jared’s cheek, his lips like tiny brands against Jared’s skin. There’s stiff flesh pressing against Jared’s hip and a dirty thrill zips up his spine that Jensen’s enjoying this as much as he is. He slides his hands down Jensen’s back and then squeezes his ass, encouraging Jensen to rock against him. Jensen does, and the soft, breathy noise he makes against Jared’s neck is maybe the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.  
  
“Feels good. Kind of can’t … um.” Jared laughs nervously and his stomach turns over on itself. “Can’t even imagine what it’ll be like to do … all the other stuff.”  
  
Jensen hums and drags his teeth gently over a spot on Jared’s jaw, and then he whispers right in Jared’s ear, “The things I wanna do to you.”  
  
Jared’s eyes flutter closed and his whole body tenses for a second; intense waves of arousal crashing over him as his mind supplies generous examples of whatever Jensen might be talking about.  
  
“Eventually,” Jensen adds, moving back to press kisses to Jared’s lips again – snapping back so quickly from a freakin’ god of sex to the sweet, kind person Jared knows.  
  
Jared has lost the ability to understand why it took him so long to realize he’s completely, irreversibly, head-over-heels in love with this man. He brings one hand back up to cup Jensen’s cheek, breaking the kiss for just a moment but keeping their foreheads pressed together so they’re sharing the warm, crackling air between them. “I love you,” he murmurs, and he has to close his eyes for a second with how strongly he means that. “So much.”  
  
“Love you back,” Jensen says softly. He kisses Jared again, but slow and tender, more of a promise than a prelude to anything. “What d’you want?”  
  
“Everything,” Jared answers honestly, even if the thought still terrifies him.  
  
Jensen smiles against his mouth. “Me too. But I meant tonight.”  
  
“I …” Jared doesn’t know, that’s the problem. He wants it all, every single thing there is, but at the same time he’s unsure. Jensen’s right there, though, to make him feel loved and protected and that soothes Jared’s worries.  
  
“Whatever you want. Anything. Even if, for now, that means doing nothing. It’s up to you.”  
  
“Well, there are things in both our pants that at least need taking care of,” Jared jokes to break the seriousness of the moment, and Jensen chuckles.  
  
“Very romantic.”  
  
“Can we at least be naked?” Jared asks, aware of how un-smooth he’s being, and then smiling in spite of himself when Jensen laughs again.  
  
“Yeah. Sounds good.” He starts to get up, but Jared stops him.  
  
“Hey wait.” Jared slides his hand over the back of Jensen’s neck and Jensen looks back at him. “Um. This is … I don’t wanna be a girl about it. But you want this, right? Me? Like, for real? Not just for tonight?”  
  
Jensen’s eyes go all soft and glittery for a second and then he dips down and kisses Jared’s cheek. “I want you for as long as you’re willing to put up with me. And I hope it’s a really, really long time.”  
  
It’s exactly what Jared wanted to hear, and he pulls Jensen into another kiss for a minute or two before Jensen flicks his shoulder and says, “Naked, remember?”  
  
Jared grins. “Oh, yeah.”  
  
They get up and Jared strips mechanically, more concerned with getting his clothes off than putting on a show, even though he can feel Jensen’s eyes on him. After he pulls off his socks and is bare, he turns to Jensen and nearly swallows his tongue to find Jensen completely undressed and standing there looking at him. Jensen is just stupidly beautiful. His skin is fairer than Jared’s and it looks so soft and smooth Jared just wants to lick it. There are freckles on his shoulders, and his chest and arms are lightly muscled in a way that Jared finds more than appealing. There is a sparse trail of shimmery golden hair leading down from his belly button to the darker curls at the base of his half-hard cock, and Jared’s mouth waters just looking at it. He’s never for a second in his life been into dicks before, but somehow because this one is attached to Jensen, Jared just wants to drop to his knees right here and swallow it whole.  
  
“Jesus, Jared,” Jensen mutters, staring at Jared as obviously as Jared’s staring at him, taking in Jared’s much bigger muscles and obviously halfway between turned on and insecure. He shakes his head a little, and then crosses his arms over his chest and shrinks almost imperceptibly in on himself – _almost_ , but Jared sees it.  
  
He frowns and steps into Jensen, cupping his face in one hand and wrapping the other arm around Jensen’s waist to pull him in close. “Don’t you dare,” Jared murmurs, kissing the corner of Jensen’s mouth and then resting his forehead against Jensen’s again. “You do not get to feel like you’re anything but completely gorgeous.”  
  
Jensen huffs a little, but he wraps his arms around Jared’s back and walks him back towards the bed.  
  
“I mean it,” Jared says, falling back onto the mattress and pulling Jensen with him. He rolls them over so he’s on top, settling on his knees and elbows and looking down into Jensen’s eyes. “There isn’t a single inch of you that’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes but he flushes a little too, like he’s flattered and embarrassed at the same time, and Jared dips down and kisses the freckles under his left eye. Jared lowers his hips down so he’s lying flush on top of Jensen, their bared cocks touching for the first time and Jared practically sees stars as he rolls his hips to grind them together. He had absolutely no frame of reference for how that would feel but if he’d been asked to guess Jared would never have imagined it’d be this good. Jensen’s cock is hot and hard next to his, and the sandwich of their abdomens traps their cocks together and rubs Jared in all the right places.  
  
“Just this?” Jensen asks softly, the backs of his knuckles brushing Jared’s cheek. “For now?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jared breathes.  
  
“‘Kay, hold up, then.”  
  
Jared stops moving and then rolls off of Jensen when he pushes gently at Jared’s shoulder. Jensen reaches for the table beside his bed, and fishes a small tube out from the drawer. He smiles shyly at Jared as he squeezes some clear lube onto his fingers and then reaches down to spread it over Jared’s cock. The soft, barely there touch of his fingers has Jared gasping and his eyes fluttering closed, and Jensen hums quietly as he smears the gel over Jared with a few strokes and then does the same thing to his own erection. Then he wipes his hand on the bedspread and pulls Jared back on top of him.  
  
Jared rolls his hips, instantly addicted to the now-slippery slide and the sharp tingles it sends through his cock and up his spine. Jensen’s body is hard beneath Jared’s like a girl’s never is, and it’s another point for the list of things he never thought he’d like but really, really does. He kisses Jensen while he rocks into him, hard and desperate, lips and tongues and teeth clinking, and Jensen wraps his arms around Jared’s back and digs his nails in and arches up against him.  
  
It’s hot and dizzying and it’s over way too soon, but Jared is okay with it because they have tomorrow off too and he fully plans on spending every second of it in this bed, learning what every speck of Jensen’s skin tastes like, learning the ticklish spots, the spots that will make him moan, the right way to touch him to have him falling apart in Jared’s hands. He wants it all, and there’s really no way he’s going to learn the virtue of patience at this point.  
  
He’s wrapped around Jensen, curled into his side, with his head on Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen’s arms around him. It’s warm and comfortable and it feels right in a way that’s clichéd but undeniably good. Jensen runs his fingers slowly through Jared’s sweaty hair, kissing the top of his head every now and then, and just existing in this moment with him that Jared wishes never had to end. Other than all the things Jared wants to do to and with Jensen tomorrow, they also have some things to talk about. Nothing ruins a good post-orgasm buzz like reality, but Jared isn’t stupid enough to think they can just fall into a relationship with each other and not deal with how it will affect the fact that they’re co-stars on a TV show. But for right now, none of that matters. Jared snuggles a little closer into Jensen’s arms and ignores it all.  
  
“So you’re a cuddler?” Jensen asks with a soft, fond laugh.  
  
“Yep.” Jared smiles and kisses Jensen’s neck. “Are you surprised?”  
  
“Not especially.”  
  
“You okay with it?”  
  
“I’ll manage somehow, I’m sure.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
____  
  
They shot the scene where Dean dies today.  
  
It stuns Jared when he realizes that it’s been a full two years since he and Jensen got together. They went by in a heartbeat because it’s been the best two years of Jared’s life, no competition. There is still the rest of the finale to shoot – Jared wanted to do the hard part first to get it out of the way, so he could enjoy the rest of what could very possibly be their last episode ever.  
  
Jared really hopes it won’t be, three seasons is not nearly enough for him. And Jared knew how hard it would be to play Sam in the scene where Dean gets ripped apart by invisible Hellhounds and dragged to Hell, how dark he would have to go to get there, and he didn’t want that to be the last memory of Supernatural he has. He doesn’t have control over the order of shooting after today, but there’s a scene in this episode where Sam and Dean sing along to Bon Jovi in the Impala, and Jared is really hoping _that_ will be the last thing they shoot. If the show is over after this season, he’d like that to be the moment that sticks with him. He and Jensen, Sam and Dean, together against the world.  
  
Jared did his thing today. He thought about Jensen dying and his dogs dying and his mom dying and he got worked up enough to sob over a bloody and motionless Dean, and Jared hasn’t seen the footage yet but he’s pretty sure the scene is amazing. Everyone said so; Jensen said so, and that’s the opinion Jared values the most. And then of course he had his obligatory breakdown because it’s nearly impossible to be that deep in a character during the worst moment of his life and then just snap out of it. Jared stumbled off to his trailer after Kim called a wrap on the scene, too overcome with emotions that were only partly his own, but Jensen trailed right after him and locked the door behind them and gathered Jared up in his arms, kissing him and bringing Jared back with warm touches and soft words whispered into his skin.  
  
Now they’re back at home, and Jared’s okay but Jensen’s still hovering. Jared’s _letting_ Jensen hover because he loves him, and because it’s nice to be taken care of sometimes. Jensen cooked dinner and wouldn’t let Jared help, and now he’s cleaning up and wouldn’t let Jared help with that either so Jared’s upstairs, lying in his bed with Harley and Sadie stretched out beside him on the side that’s become Jensen’s. Jensen makes his way up the stairs eventually, leaning on the frame when he gets to the door and smiling fondly at Jared and the dogs.  
  
“I love how much you love them,” he says.  
  
“I’d kick them off the bed in a second if you were gonna take their spot,” Jared replies, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.  
  
Jensen cracks up and walks into the room. He snaps and points out the door, and both dogs jump up obediently and take off down the stairs. Jared chuckles at the sound of them skidding on the hardwood and manages not to lament that they listen to Jensen’s commands a hundred times better than Jared’s. Jensen climbs over Jared and settles down beside him, pressed up against Jared’s side. He props himself up on one elbow and looks down at Jared, oceans of love and affection swimming in his green eyes. It intimidates Jared sometimes, even after two years, the way Jensen looks at him.  
  
“What?” he asks, grinning when Jensen doesn’t look away.  
  
“Nothing. Just love you like crazy, that’s all.” Jensen dips down and kisses Jared softly. “You were so amazing today, Jay.”  
  
“Thanks.” Jared slides his hand up and into Jensen’s short hair, pulling him back in for a deeper kiss. “So were you.”  
  
“I know how hard it is to do scenes like that. How hard it is to climb back out of it.”  
  
Jared shrugs. “That’s what I got you for, right?”  
  
Jensen smiles. He cups Jared’s cheek in his palm and rubs his thumb over Jared’s bottom lip. “You always got me.”  
  
“You think so? Always?”  
  
“Why not? I’m not goin’ anywhere. Are you?”  
  
“No. Never,” Jared assures him. He guides Jensen’s face closer to his own again so he can kiss the freckles on Jensen’s nose. “M’maybe a little worried about what we’re gonna do if the show’s over.”  
  
Jensen grins. “So you’ve only been with me up until now because it’s convenient? Because I’m right here anyway?”  
  
Jared chuckles, and though it’s a million miles from the truth, he jokes, “Maybe.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head, still smiling, and grabs Jared to roll them over – settling on his back and pulling Jared half on top of him. Jared pillows his head on Jensen’s chest, and Jensen kisses his hair.  
  
“I just mean …”  
  
“I know what you mean,” Jensen assures, wrapping his arms around Jared. “We’ll be fine. We’ll come out, or we’ll move to Alaska, or whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. As long as I have you.”  
  
“You do have me. And, y’know. Have _had_ me,” Jared teases.  
  
Jensen laughs softly. “Also true. Speaking of …”  
  
“Okay, but do I have to move?” Jared complains, only half serious. “You’re comfy.”  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re turning down sex for a nap. You’re way too young to be that old.”  
  
“If I ever turn down sex for a nap you have my full permission to throw holy water on me.”  
  
“Noted.” Jensen hums quietly, happily, and then doesn’t move either. He noses through Jared’s hair and inhales deeply. Jared grins and kisses his neck.  
  
“Rockin’ my world, baby.”  
  
“Shut up,” Jensen says without an ounce of heat in his words. “So maybe you’re comfy too.”  
  
“You just love me,” Jared teases, drawing out the word _love_ , and Jensen hums again.  
  
“I do.”  
  
“So then c’mon. Sex me up.”  
  
Jensen rolls them so Jared is on his back and Jensen is draped over him, kissing Jared soundly. “Only if you promise to never use that expression again.”  
  
Jared laughs. “Okay. Deal.”  
  
He forgets how to breathe sometimes when Jensen kisses him. It’s like Jensen tries to pour every scrap of how much he loves Jared into each brush of their lips, and sometimes it’s more than Jared’s head and heart know how to process all at once. Jensen is an intense person and having all that laser intensity focused directly on Jared is as amazing as it is hard to handle. This time, Jensen kisses him softly and desperately at the same time, somehow, and strips Jared of his clothes with gentle, loving hands that leave goosebumps as they pass over Jared’s skin. He gets off the bed for just a moment to undress himself, and Jared rests on his elbows and watches intently as fabric peels away to reveal pale, freckled skin. Arousal swirls inside him and his mouth fills with saliva, wanting more than anything to taste all that soft skin stretched tight over firm muscle.  
  
Jensen smiles at him shyly when he notices Jared watching – still not quite aware of how devastatingly gorgeous he is even though Jared tells him all the time. He grabs the small tube of clear gel they keep in the nightstand drawer and climbs back on top of Jared, lying over him and kissing him again. Jared’s breath catches as their cocks slide together, Jensen’s body moving slightly as he pushes his tongue into Jared’s mouth.  
  
“Me or you?” he asks quietly, lifting his head up only long enough to pose the question and then dropping it back down to drag his teeth lightly along Jared’s jaw.  
  
“Me,” Jared answers, anticipation making his heartbeat speed up.  
  
Jensen doesn’t respond in words. He kisses his way slowly down Jared’s chest, licking and nipping at the spots he finds with practiced ease that ignite sparks under Jared’s skin. He mouths along Jared’s erection when he gets to it but doesn’t waste time squeezing lube into his hand and spreading it generously over his fingers before reaching between Jared’s legs. Jensen pushes fingers into him, slow and one at a time. He knows Jared too well, knows exactly when to twist and where to press to make arousal swell in Jared’s gut. He rocks down against Jensen’s hand, wanting more, and Jensen slides back in with three and spreads them apart. The stretch is pleasure mixed with pain and Jared has been addicted to it since the very first time. It’s been two years and every time it still feels new and exciting and Jared hopes that never changes.  
  
Jensen moves up Jared’s body, licking along his chest again as he goes, until his face is level with Jared’s and he can slide their lips together while his fingers move in and out of Jared’s body.  
  
“Love the noises you make,” he whispers.  
  
“Didn’t know I made a noise,” Jared says, laughing a little at himself.  
  
“I know.” Jensen bumps Jared’s nose with his own. “That’s why I love it.”  
  
“That’s enough,” Jared tells him, clenching around Jensen’s fingers so he gets it.  
  
“‘Kay.” Jensen kisses him again as he slowly pulls his hand away and reaches for the lube again.  
  
Jared takes the tube from his hand before Jensen can open it. “Sit up. Against the headboard.”  
  
Jensen’s eyes close and he swears softly, under his breath. Jared smiles. He sits up and moves out of the way so Jensen can take his place, leaning on the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him. His hard cock curves up toward the ceiling, the tip leaving a shiny trail of precome on his abdomen and Jared’s mouth waters just looking at it. He has half a mind to drop down and suck it until Jensen explodes down his throat, but that isn’t what either of them want right now. Jared crawls over Jensen’s legs, straddling them and reaching behind himself for Jensen’s cock. Jensen’s hands slide slowly up Jared’s thighs, nails digging gently into his heated skin, and their eyes lock as Jared lowers himself onto his boyfriend’s cock.  
  
The feeling of being stretched open is familiar and it stings but somehow in a good way. Jared’s eyes fall closed and he moans, not stopping until his ass brushes Jensen’s legs.  
  
“Look at me,” Jensen murmurs, reaching one hand up and cupping Jared’s cheek in his hand.  
  
Jared opens his eyes and stares down into Jensen’s intense green ones, and the love and affection and sheer, primal _want_ he finds there is almost hard to look at, like an eclipse. He grinds his hips in a circle, moaning again and dropping his head to rest on Jensen’s shoulder as the tip of Jensen’s cock rubs against the spot deep inside that makes Jared see stars.  
  
“Feels good?” Jensen asks, gripping the back of Jared’s neck with one hand and squeezing his thigh with the other.  
  
He doesn’t need to ask, but he always does. He likes to take care of Jared, and Jared likes to let him. “Yeah,” Jared breathes.  
  
“I was supposed to be on top, y’know.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“‘Cause I’m supposed to be showin’ _you_ a good time, not the other way around.”  
  
Jared grins and shrugs. “Wouldn’t be fun for either of us if I just lie there.”  
  
“That sounds like a challenge.” Jensen grins back and pulls Jared’s face down to kiss him.  
  
Jared lifts his hips slowly, nerve endings lighting up as Jensen slides out of him, and sets up a slow, even rhythm that’s enough to drive them both crazy but not much else. Jensen pushes up into him, kissing Jared harder and deeper and more possessive. Jared loves that side of his boyfriend. About a month after they started officially dating Jared started to notice it – the way Jensen would subtly glare at the makeup girls when they came in between takes to do touch-ups to Jared’s face or hair; how he insisted on being on set the day Jared shot his sex scene with Emmanuelle last season, and then when it was over he dragged Jared off to his trailer with a thunderous look on his face and gave him the most intense blowjob of his life right there against the inside of the door. Jared has a hard time some days not flirting with people intentionally to get a rise out of Jensen, so Jensen will take him home and fuck him hard and growl _mine_ into his ear. Jared really, really likes belonging to Jensen.  
  
He rocks against Jensen, the pleasure building in a slow burn. He speeds up and slows down randomly and Jensen makes these soft, desperate little noises sometimes that make Jared’s head spin. Jensen curls his fingers around Jared’s cock after a while, squeezing gently and stroking slowly. He slides his thumb over the slit where Jared’s leaking thin, slippery precome and Jared bites back a moan.  
  
Jensen hums happily and does it again, and Jared can’t keep the sound inside a second time. “Damn it, Jared. So fuckin’ sexy.”  
  
The praise makes Jared feel exactly like he did a decade ago when Jensen wanted to talk to him even though Jared was a dorky thirteen-year-old to Jensen’s smooth, confident seventeen. It hits him sometimes that he’s been trailing after Jensen for most of his life, always seeking his approval, always desperate to be cool enough for Jensen to like him. Now Jensen loves him, _wants_ him, and there are moments sometimes when Jared still can’t wrap his head around it.  
  
Unexpectedly, Jensen grabs him and flips them over. Jared lands hard on the mattress and the air gets punched out of his lungs, and he doesn’t have time to replace it before Jensen’s kissing him. Jensen pushes Jared’s legs up and pounds into him roughly while his tongue slips into Jared’s mouth and Jared’s heart forgets how to beat for a few moments as pleasure overwhelms him.  
  
“What?” he chokes out, not able to finish the thought.  
  
“Can’t handle you lookin’ at me like that,” Jensen rasps, dropping his head down to bite gently at Jared’s shoulder.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“The way you just were. Like I’m your whole fuckin’ world.”  
  
“You are.”  
  
Jensen moans instead of answering and fucks Jared harder, and Jared cries out as Jensen nails his prostate and holds on to him tightly. It’s over too fast but it’s _perfect_ , quick and intense and Jared’s orgasm hits him like a bulldozer that knocks him flat and breaks the part of his brain that knows how to do anything but twitch and cling to Jensen. He isn’t even aware of whether Jensen comes too or not, just that eventually Jensen slows down to shallow, unhurried thrusts, his face buried in Jared’s neck, and then stops moving all together and sinks into Jared.  
  
“Fuck, Jensen,” Jared manages to whisper.  
  
“Sorry,” Jensen mumbles, the word muffled between Jared’s skin and the pillow underneath his head.  
  
Jared swats him gently. “Shut up. That was awesome.”  
  
Jensen lifts his hips slowly so his cock slips out of Jared’s body and rolls onto his back, turning his head to look at Jared with questions in his eyes. Jared smiles at him and turns onto his side, cuddling up against Jensen and kissing his neck. Jensen gets his arms around Jared and hugs him tight.  
  
“Can I tell you something?” Jensen asks softly.  
  
“You can tell me anything.”  
  
“I think about it sometimes, and I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since the first time we met. Just didn’t know it then.”  
  
“Well not the _first_ time,” Jared points out. “‘Cause that would make you a complete perv since I was thirteen.”  
  
Jensen chuckles quietly. “Okay, yeah. I liked you that time. But I meant the time at the party. I saw you and I just … I can’t explain it. It was this rush, this stupid love-at-first-sight thing. Even though it wasn’t actually first sight.”  
  
“Hey, you know what?” Jared pulls out of Jensen’s arms a little and pushes himself up to rest on his elbow so he can see Jensen’s face. A memory from years ago just hit him, listening to Jensen talk about that night. “Dude, I can’t believe I forgot about this until now. Do you remember at that party when we figured out we’d met at that basketball thing? I was thinking about it the next day, and I totally remembered something else.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“When I was … I don’t know, like, maybe seven? I went to this county fair in Plano with my family and I got lost. And these two older kids helped me find my parents again, and I think one of them was named Jensen. I remembered ‘cause I thought it was a weird name.”  
  
Jared watches Jensen’s face slowly fold into a frown like he’s searching his subconscious for the memory and then he inhales sharply and his eyes widen to the size of ping-pong balls.  
  
“Holy shit,” he mutters.  
  
“Was that you?” Jared asks, laughing in disbelief.  
  
“I … I remember that!” Jensen pushes up to his elbows too, and then changes his mind and sits right up. “I was there with Josh and my dad, and there was this little kid who was crying and we helped him find his mom! I haven’t thought about that since that day! Jesus, are you seriously telling me that was you?”  
  
“I mean, we went to that fair every year,” Jared says, barely able to fathom that the kid all those years ago was actually Jensen. “And I remember getting lost, and that two blond teenagers helped me. What are the chances that happened to both of us separately?”  
  
Jensen shakes his head, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he says, “Probably almost nonexistent. This … is this something? This is something, right? It has to be.”  
  
“Like that we were supposed to end up together, you mean?”  
  
“I don’t believe in that crap,” Jensen says slowly, his eyes still wide like he can’t wrap his head around what’s happening. Jared can’t either. “But, shit … it’s like we kept meeting, like the universe or whatever kept putting us together, but we just never found a reason to stick around until now.”  
  
“Move in with me.” The words come out of Jared’s mouth automatically.  
  
Jensen looks down at him. “You – really?”  
  
Jared shrugs. “Why not? You basically live here anyway. When was the last time you actually spent more than an hour at your apartment? Six months? More?”  
  
Jensen chews on his lip and thinks about it. “Shit. You’re right. I don’t know why I never thought about that until now.”  
  
“You’re paying rent on a place that’s basically a storage locker,” Jared reasons, appealing to Jensen’s practical side. Jared is the one prone to spontaneity and flights of fancy – Jensen prefers logic. “It’s not like there isn’t room for all your stuff here. What little of it isn’t here already. And besides, like you said. We kept meeting. All those times, when we were kids and everything. We kept finding each other, but we never stayed together. We met up but we always left after. And then somehow we found a way back.”  
  
“So you think we’re, what, like soulmates or something?” Jensen looks skeptical, but he also doesn’t look like he hates the idea.  
  
Jared smiles and tugs Jensen back down for a kiss. “What I’m saying, is that I don’t know if it’s God or fate or what, but _something_ is telling us that … you’n’me? We’re not supposed to say goodbye to each other. Ever. And if you lived here, we wouldn’t have to. So move in.”  
  
Jensen presses his lips together and then they tilt slowly into a smile. “Okay.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. Definitely. Let’s do it.”  
  
Jared smiles even wider. He holds out his hand for Jensen to shake. “I’m Jared. Good to meet you.”  
  
Jensen chuckles and pushes Jared’s hand away, lying down and pulling Jared back into his arms instead. “I know who you are, doofus.”  
  
“Hey,” Jared says softly.  
  
Jensen smiles at him and kisses him softly, slow brushes of his lips that remind Jared of the first time. “Hello.”


End file.
